


Romeo and Juliet but you’re Benvolio and I’m Rosaline

by cloudyblueberries



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: /Reader, 14 CHAPTERS IN, ALMOST 30K WORDS AND THEY FINALLY KISS, Abusive Parents, Angst, Drug Abuse, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, GUYS THEY KISSED FINALLY, Magic, Maybe - Freeform, Mentions of Grooming, Mentions of Sexual Assault, PTSD, Post Season 3, Reader Insert, Self Insert, Smoking, THEY KISSED!!!!, They/them pronouns used, Time traveller, Trevor and Sypha are here and try and play matchmaker before leaving, Yearning, afab mc, after season 3, alchohol addiction, alchoholism, both parties have ptsd, but we all know they’ll deny their feelings for another few chapters, christmas is on the mind so thats what’s coming up, dont do drugs kids, drug mention, femme mc, femme presenting mc, haha this place is built for a vampire shame they don’t exist, i feel like fall out boy writing these chapter names, i have no healthy outlet, ill add tags as i go, i’m going to be projecting my trauma, long chapter names are great and i’ll sink with that ship, mc is barely coming to terms with their crush, mc is kinda dumb but also foreshadows a little bit, next stop is an actual relationship, nicotine addiction, nonbinary MC, none of that y/n stuff, parents never explicitly seen only spoken about, reader is a bit oblivious to flirtatious banter, shitty parents, slowburn, we 10 chapters and 20k words in and theres no confession, x Reader, ya dig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 35,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudyblueberries/pseuds/cloudyblueberries
Summary: After a questionable night out with some friends and an even more questionable amount of absinthe you find yourself in a labyrinth of a castle with a pretty blond dhampir in a time period very distant from your own, you want to find your way back home.CREATED [13TH DECEMBER 2020]
Relationships: Alucard (Castlevania)/Reader, Alucard (Castlevania)/You, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Reader, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/You
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	1. Repercussions of drunken endeavours

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys I hope you enjoy the first thing I’ve written in a long time. I would love feedback because that’s what makes the dream work :)

This wasn’t where you expected to find yourself face down on a hard floor, your nose was a little bloody but nothing felt broken. You thanked fate for keeping your nose in the same shape.

After dabbing your nose with a tissue from your pocket you finally managed to take in the room around you. There was rubble on the ground and a wall in the opposite site of the room which lead to another room. Where exactly had you stumbled to in your drunken stupor last night? And where were the people you were with? The last thing you properly remembered was walking home from the bar, but from your lack of knowledge of where you currently were you definitely drank more than you intended to last night. You finally push yourself up off the ground, you wobble a little but regain balance quickly. You look down and observe the mess of your body. You wore a plunge top last night as well as a pair of lowcut jeans, if the top was to attract someone or just to look cute you couldn’t quite remember. You notice a hardened substance on your top, you knew what it was immediately, vomit. You only really vomited after a night on absinthe, that would explain your lack of recollection of the evening.

Pushing the thought of booze to the back of your head, lest you vomit again, the national trust, or whatever dumb organisation that owned this place wont be happy to see you on their premises in the first place let alone a puddle of vomit to accompany you. You reach for your phone from your pocket only to find it wasn’t there. “Fuck” is the only work you speak, so you’re not just in some random olde house you’re also phoneless so its not like you could contact anyone to pick you up. You do notice, however, in your other back pocket your tobacco is quietly sat begging to be lit. You oblige feeling the hit of nicotine almost immediately. You hoped it would clear your head a little, and it felt like it did.

Deciding to finally leave this room, which you had speculated may have been a ballroom in its prime. After stumbling to a door to the side of the ballroom you find yourself in a hallway. It’s not like you didn’t expect there to be a hallway, its just with the lack of recollection of getting here, you may as well be in the middle of a labyrinth. A dozen curses, 3 halls and a trip later you find yourself back to the door you stated at. Was is it really this difficult to traverse this labyrinth or was your tired hungover brain not working enough for you? You couldn’t possibly tell. Though, as you flipped the ballroom door off and turned your back to it you see a pair of eyes watching you from the other side of the hall “Look, i know I’m not supposed to be here, and i’ve lost my wallet so i cant pay but i’ll” you trail off wondering what you could trade “i’ll get you off in exchange for a phone call so i can back home” This hadn’t been your first rodeo ending up somewhere you shouldn’t be but it was always easy enough to offer a blowjob or a quick finger to be able to find yourself on your way back home.

The presence at the door recedes slightly, making you wonder if it was even there in the first place. But, a flash of wind and the sudden presence of a wall and a hand around your neck pushed the brief thought away. The next few moments to you were in complete panic, not because of whoever this person was, but it made you flashback to when you had found yourself in a similar circumstance. Tears threatened to spill “Please, don’t hold my neck” you beg, the man holding you scoffs a little 

“Scared of punishment for trespassing in my home?” he asks, his grip tightening, you wince. After a second or two you look up to him. The thought of his attractiveness bubbled to the surface for a beat before your thoughts dissipated almost remembering your situation.

“Please” you beg looking the man in his eyes, “Punish me how you want, but please let go of my throat” you hastily add, you put emphasis on the second please. You feel tears welling up and the panic was starting to settle in. Maybe this man was compelled by your words, or the complete look of panic in your eyes, his hands move from your neck to your shoulders, there’s more force pushing you into the wall but you wouldn’t complain at least the hands were off your neck.

“What are you doing here?” the man asks, after you murmur a breath of thanks. You hesitate on the answer not really knowing the answer.

“I had a rough night last night, by the looks of things” you begin, the man looks at you unimpressed “I must have been convinced to drink shots of absinthe by a friend and I woke up in the ballroom” you’re sure to look this man in the eyes to make sure he knows you’re telling the truth, this man seems dangerous and provokable, telling lies could get you killed, or worse.

“You were drunk?” the man asks, although the question seems to be more of a statement if anything. At the words you feel his grip relax just a little, not enough for you to go anywhere but it didn’t feel like you were about to become the wall “How did you get into my home without me knowing?” he asks, maybe more to himself then you.

“Maybe I crawled through a window, or used a side door” you offer some reasoning “I’ve occasionally found myself in places I don’t want to be because of drunken stupor” you look down and smile thinking of the times you’ve woken up in strange places but usually you were surrounded by friends, or at the very least you had your phone.

“Why not check surveillance cameras? A place like this is bound to have cameras everywhere outside” you offer, even if you couldn’t explain your appearance, they sure as hell could.

If the man before had never heard of words like phone and camera, he definitely didn’t show it, perhaps he presumed it was slang for certain spells he wasn’t well versed in. “I am the surveillance” he states looking you in the eyes between a long pause. A million thoughts were racing around this mans head, starting from ‘holy shit they’re here to kill me’ to ‘jesus, they’re not even armed’ and even the thought of the immodest clothes you wore, he could pin you as a jezebel or a whore but the clothes you wear are nothing he could recognise. On the other hand you had less thoughts running through your brain, the main ones speaking about how imminent your demise was another whispered about how you really had no clue where you were. A memory, or the lack thereof, surfaces and reminds you how you had lost just over half a week after drinking too much absinthe for your body to like.

You barely hear the man ask the question of your name because of how deep in your thoughts you had been you take a moment longer than usual to process the question, but upon realising it you quickly stammer your name out. You go to ask the man his name, but quickly decide against it out of fear. You could mentally call him Goldilocks or Rapunzel for the time being. The man before you seems to be thinking and after a few moments he loosens his grip again. If he let you, you could probably snake out of the grip and run. But maybe that was the test he was presenting in front of you. In the mans opinion the test was less about if you’d run, but more about if you would attempt to stab him, or something similar. After what felt like an eternity of staying frozen on the spot the man sighs “Where do you live?” he asks, his arms not shifting as if challenging you to run. You inform him of your address with more confidence then you thought you had. That confidence shatters as you watch the man try and remember where your home is. 

“I’ve never heard of that place, and I pride myself on being well travelled” he states “What country are you from?” he asks carefully, you tell him and he furrows his brows “That’s a long way aways” he informs you.

After a moment of silence, mainly to take in the information “Where am I?” you ask and for a moment a sick feeling comes across your body “When am I?” you question, you had asked the question before even really processing the whole thought.

“We are currently in the country of Wallachia in the Lords year of 1455” the man informs you.

You feel like you could pass out.

In fact you did, because when you arose you found yourself laying in a large bed, much bigger than the one you could ever dream of at home. Maybe you died and heaven was actually the softest feather downed bed in the world. Bah! You laughed internally at the thought, even if you believed in all that heaven/hell riffraff you would definitely be joining the others in the underworld. You weren’t a killer or anything, but the handful of abortions and the sex with both sexes probably signed the seal of hell. That or the fact you didn’t believe in the sky-daddy. Probably the latter. After a handful of minutes of content you roll out of the bed and suddenly realise the lack of vomit clothes which had been replaced with a long, modest, nightgown. You couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable in it. On the bedside table you first notice you pouch of tobacco and all its effects, thank god. The next thing you notice is a note written on a scrap of paper. The handwriting, in contrast to the paper, screamed educated scholar, the words were beautifully written but still legible. It read ‘I have taken your clothes to wash as I’m sure you would dislike waking up to vomit coated clothes again. There are clothes in the closet that are close to your size, if not exact. There will be food to eat once you’re ready to find the kitchen’ attached to the note was a quickly drawn map to direct you to the kitchen. Easy peasy.

You open the large closet and find an assortment of clothes, if you had doubt in your mind about the year it was quickly satiated by the period typical clothes. Your face pales a little, there is no way you’d feel comfortable in such a long dress like the ones before you. As you explored the wardrobe you come to notice some nice blouses and trousers. Although the frills on the blouse were a bit overwhelming, you felt comfortable in the clothes, they were definitely well made. They kind of made you also feel like a vampire, especially in these labyrinths halls. You laugh at the seemingly ludicrous thought. You look yourself over in the vanity mirror in the room and leave the room without forgetting both your baccy and map.

You followed the map closely and made it to the kitchen without a hitch. You found some food on the table labelled with your name and you pull i towards you as you sit. You take a bite without realising how hungry you really were, you wolfed down the food within in five minutes and with zero regrets. After a stomach full of food and the occasional hiccup to indicate you in fact did eat the food much too fast for your body’s liking. After finally gaining control of your hiccups you found yourself rolling a fag without much thought.

“Tobacco isn’t good for you” a voice from behind you announces, without turning you could tell it was Rapunzel

“Well Goldilocks, I have a good tasty case of self-destructive senses” you respond without thinking about the nickname “It’s either tobacco or heroin” you add with a morbid chuckle, the blond didn’t seem to acknowledge the second part of your words.

“Goldilocks?” he questions sitting opposite you, he seems ready to pounce at you if you look at him wrong, maybe that is your paranoid conscious speaking. You go to make another morbid comment about your unhealthy mechanisms but his question pushes the thought out your mind and your look down to the cigarette between your hands.

“Oh yeah...” you trail off wondering what to say that wouldn’t piss the quick blond across the table off “Well you never gave me a name, so, uh, Goldilocks it is” you pause “unless you prefer rapunzel” the man opposite you seems to show no amusement in his face, he kind of deadpans at you. He sighs.

“My name is Adrian Tepes, better known as Alucard to your kind” he tells you through what you would read as gritted teeth, you smile thinking of how you could say ‘Goldilocks it is’ but the man in front of you seemed like he would rip your throat out if you said that 

“Well, Adrian” you test his name on your tongue, an easy enough name to remember, “Tell me somewhere I can smoke this” you smile waving the cigarette in your hand to indicate what you were smoking. Without much thought Adrian tells you the direction of how to get on the outside of the labyrinth. After a wrong left turn and a little bit of backtracking you find yourself in front of two large doors, one of which was slightly ajar it almost felt like it was waiting for you. 

As you leave the labyrinth you look down and focus on lighting the cigarette between your fingers. It took till you were at the bottom of the stairs to finally get it lit and you take a long drag. The first thing you notice are some ruins ahead of you. Who would build a labyrinth not to far away from a set of ruins? Your eyes then focused on the trees, maybe once you felt less exhausted from the now imposing hangover you could climb a few trees. You like climbing trees. Your focus next sees a giant hole in the ground in between the ruins and the trees. From what you could make out it seems like the way down is via a pulley system. You wonder what’s held in the underground area. But you’re not left to dwell on it much as you realise you’ve taken the final drag of smoke. 

You turn around and finally take in the imposing structure that you’ll be, presumably, staying in till you find your way back home. The structure is large, beautiful and gothic. You chuckle to yourself the dumb thought of ‘looks like a vampires abode’. You notice Adrian looking at you through a window and decide to give him a wave. How long had he been watching you? Your eyes fall down the castle and take in each detail until you finally notice two bodies on pikes. You pause for a moment looking between both the corpses. Sure you were in whatever year, but surely they whole corpse outside doors was just a fake thing made to make history exiting. The two bodies were proof enough of the former being totally false.

You can feel your skin go cold, these bodies couldn’t be more than two weeks old, you noticed a distinct lack decomposing flesh but the scent that after the smell of tobacco left the air was putrid, the organs were definitely on their was out. It didn’t make you gag once, but in fact twelve times, tears rose to your eyes because of the consistent gagging. You speedily walk past the bodies and close the front door behind you “Holy mother of fuck” you curse “I want to fucking go home” you say with the conviction of hundreds of people. Every time you close your eyes you see the bodies once again swinging in the wind. With a small bout of confidence you make it to the kitchen once again and you began to look for some alcohol. Twenty minutes ago the thought of more booze would make you puke, but now, finding and downing a bottle of whatever would be more then tasteful.

You didn’t actually see Adrian again for the rest of the day, you found to bottles of red wine and they were gone before you knew it and then you spent the remainder of the afternoon stumbling around the castle drunkenly singing whatever dumb song came to mind. You found your way back to the kitchen at one point to find some food which you ate at a slow, tasteful pace. That’s when you realised, presumably Adrians, cooking was amazing. The food tasted so bloody good. After food you found yourself another bottle of badly hidden, half full, white wine, which you took to your bedroom with you. The less you remember about the bodies on the porch, the better. 

You pass out on top of the covers still clothed.


	2. What art feels like to a mortal

You awake feeling a pulsing in your head you put it down to the wine your barely remember drinking. You pull the covers off your body, you don’t remember going under them, but in your inebriated state anything was possible. Rolling onto bed and almost onto the hardwood floor you manage to relieve your bladder and leave your room. You hadn’t bothered changing out of yesterdays clothes, seemingly the only other person in the castle was Adrian, so you didn’t feel too bad parading about in yesterdays clothes.

As you made your way to the kitchen you decided the best thing to do was slide down the stairs on your bottom to avoid a hungover mistake on the way down. You don’t fail to curse the fact the only alcohol you could find was wine considering it gives you the worse hangovers humanly possible. You wish for half a second that you were as vampiric as the shirt made you, the wish worked on the presumption that theoretical vampires couldn’t get hungover.

You open the door to the kitchen and find Adrian sat at the table nursing what seems to be a bowl of porridge. Your mind recalls the time that you had a bowl of porridge at college just to immediately throw it back up over your friends nice clothes. You internally chuckle at the though of that morning. “Mornin’” you greet with a raise of your hand. The blond just nods at you, barely recognising your presence, he continues his food while you go out your way to find a kettle.

“What are you looking for?” Adrian asks, you spin around to him with pleading eyes

“Please tell me you have a kettle and some tea, earl grey preferably but i wont complain to some peppermint” you answer, the man gets up and takes a kettle out of a cupboard from the opposite side of the room. He fills up the kettle with, “Wait is that running water?” you ask watching the kettle fill “That shouldn’t be invented for another few hundred years” you add watching Adrian place the kettle on the stove and turning the gas on “What?” you question “Water and gas? You said that we were in the 15th century, this isn’t right” you trail off watching the kettle

“My father was a man of science, we have many things in my home that most of society has lost to history” Adrian speaks after a few moments of silence you look up to the the blond.

“I would understand that if running water and gas would be implemented in the next century or so but this is like 3 maybe 400 years before their invention” you pause thinking about what more trivial history facts you knew “i can kinda understand the toilet, that’s not due for what, 100 years?” you pause “it’s so many lifetimes before they’re due”

“My father had knowledge of many centuries and put his knowledge to make a technological paradise” he responds almost cryptically, you furrow your brows 

“At this point if you told me your dad was Dracula or something I wouldn’t be surprised” you joke a slight laugh leaving your lips “To have that much knowledge you’d have to be immortal, that or a smart scientist time traveller” you add with a chuckle, you barely notice Adrian tense slightly.

Wait.

What did Adrian say when he told you his name? “My name is Adrian Tepes, better known as Alucard to your kind” he tells you. You recall the memory with a sleight laugh

“Your parents must have been playing a good joke on you as a child for your other name to be Dracula backwards” you laugh, damn what morbid parents. You think back to the memory again ‘better known as Alucard to your kind’ you hadn’t really dwelled on it when you first heard it but with all the kinds of things you noticed around the place how likely was it that- you laugh internally at your thoughts. Jesus Christ, why did you feel like Bella from Twilight, Michael from Underworld or even that lady from the first Blade movie. Was your next ludicrous thought going to tell you werewolves were here too? Was Bill Nighy somewhere wreaking havoc? If werewolves and vampires were to exist where would Richard Armitage be causing trouble to about now?

The whistling of a kettle takes you away from your thoughts, you notice Adrian hadn’t moved from watching the kettle yet he hadn’t spoken a word about what you had mentioned about his second name “We all know all things supernatural only exist in fiction” you smile up to the blond, who gives you an unconvincing smile back. You brush it off and finish making your tea. Adrian sits back in his seat as you make your tea, you then decide on taking the seat opposite him.

“Do you really not believe in the supernatural?” Adrian asks after a while of silence, you shake your head and sip your tea.

“Well, with what we know in the 21st century we can see that these superstitions were just things made to scare people by the church in centuries like this one” you pause “It was effective crowd control” you add looking up to Adrian “I’m interested in history, it was nothing I ever pursued in an educational setting, bit I love learning about it” you explain your background to the man opposite you. Adrian looks conflicted maybe trying to figure out if you’re lying or not or maybe trying to figure out and if you were really telling the truth how was he going to tell you about what he really was.

You sip more of your tea and you feel your mind becoming less clouded. For sure your best hangover cure was a good cuppa, you smile into the cup and think about what you could achieve in the day. You say Adrians name and he hums in response looking up from a book you didn’t notice he had, “Have you got any sketchbooks? Maybe some graphite as well?” you ask, you could probably find somewhere to sit and sketch the scenery. You remember seeing a some outside parts to the castle when you went outside yesterday, maybe a blanket and the canopy of the forest would make your day fly by.

“I do” he states, he places his book down “Stay right here and I’ll find something for you” he adds before leaving the room, you smile to yourself. Maybe the male didn’t want you exploring wherever he kept his art stash or maybe he wanted to be gentlemanly. You chuckle it was no secret that tons of doors were locked to keep you from exploring, every room labelled with Library was firmly locked shut so you couldn’t even brush it off with the fact that they were empty rooms. Although, you didn’t fail to notice that Adrian didn’t have a large set of keys on his person at all times. Maybe they’re locked with magic? Hah, if only magic existed.

After about 5 minutes, which was more than enough time to finish your tea, Adrian came back with a well made sketchbook for you and an assortment of graphite’s of different hardness and boldness as well as some ink and quills. 

You flick through the pages of the sketchbook admiring each page of the book and the leather cover. You couldn’t help but fell like you fit into the cottagecore witch aesthetic just by holding the book. “The sketchbook itself is a work of art” you announce, “the pages of the book look handmade, which I have no doubt they are. And the binding of the book looks beautiful and neat” you look at the pages. Your concentration on the book causes you to miss Adrian blushing ever so lightly at the flattery

“I’m glad you think so, that’s one of the sketchbooks I crafted a while ago” he informs you, your eyes shoot up to greet his eyes

“Holy shit! That’s amazing! Your craftsmanship is spectacular!” you gush looking back down to the book “I almost feel bad using such a piece,” Adrian smiles at you a little with a light chuckle

“I trust that you’ll show the book the art it deserves” He nods to you as he washes his bowl “You’ve got to promise to show me at least some of what you’ve created over dinner” he announces before leaving the room. You weren’t quite sure what time of the day he meant for dinner, you knew dinner to you was different to dinner for other people. So you set out with the goal to have a small handful of drawings done by noon.

And that’s what you did, you found yourself a blanket in your room and ventured to as high up as the locked doors would let you. It felt like a path of unlocked doors that lead you to your destination. It had to have been coincidence because there was no way anybody knew of your plan to draw on a bridge. You had to have woken inhumanly early, so it had to have been 7 or 8am, because you were drawing for a good four hours, you had filled three pages of the sketchbook and an extra secret page at the back which was Adrians face as much as you could remember it, you would have to go back to it after seeing the blond again.

Stretching your limbs which had become stiff due to the prolonged time sat in the same position you start to make your way down the castle to the floor with the kitchen. While making your way down to the kitchen you decide that if Adrian wasn’t already there cooking something you would attempt to use you’re culinary skills, or the lack thereof. Sure you knew how to cook a mean pasta bake, and a chilli con carne wasn’t exactly beyond you, you never really fared well when it came to simple things like cooking fish, steaming fish, and dare you even think about making bread. 

Much to your delight you see Adrian already in the kitchen preparing food, although the idea of you making food could be like a thanks you are sure there are other ways for saying thanks to the mans home you’re invading. You place your stuff down on the table and stand beside Adrian, “Need help with anything?” you ask watching the male stir the soup. You lean forwards and take a sniff, chicken soup.

“Sure” he agrees after thinking what you could do “You can butter up two bread rolls” he points to what you could only assume was the pantry. Even thinking of the word pantry made you think of a friend who lived in an old house which had the largest pantry you could think of. To be fair your friends pantry had been the only one you had ever seen so maybe that comparison wasn’t fair.

Well within your thoughts you walk to the pantry and find yourself in a cold room. There is no doubt this is supposed to be a pantry, you half wished you had the blanket over your shoulders to face this room. You notice a basket of half a dozen bread rolls and next to it a jar of butter, you presume how homemade these simple items were. You think about a poor peasant woman churning butter in a windmill type contraption, you chuckle at the absurdity of a butter churning windmill and wonder what is actually used.

You set up your buttering station on the kitchen side, not too far away from Adrian who seems to be deep in thought stirring the soup. You begin buttering the breads your mind getting cast back to making food with your flat mates at university next to a certain flat mate you definitely did NOT have a thing for. You smile at the thought of being domestic with someone, your heart yearns for a second.

“Do you want bread with that butter?” Adrian asks sarcastically looking down to the bread in your hand which had more than enough butter to sink a small battleship on it, you quickly rectify your mistake with a couple of apologies. Not long after the butter incident you watch the blond fill two bowls full of soup and you both sit and eat your food in silence, for the first few sips of the soup at least.

“Have you completed any pieces yet?” Adrian asks, you nod your mouth full of bread. You slide the sketchbook across the table and open it to the first page. You continue to eat while watching Adrian study the three pages he could see. “You seem to have a fascination with the ruins” he states “Something there you want?” he asks almost accusatory. You shake you head

“No,” you respond in your defence “I just think its interesting that such a massive structure like this was erected so close to those ruins. Almost like this castle was just plopped on top the ruins” you continue looking down to the soup. Adrian nods and closes the sketchbook.

“I will be going into town tomorrow morning” the man announces, changing the conversation. “Is there anything you want picked up?” he asks looking over to you. Excitement causes your heart to jump

“Wait. Wait. Wait” you look up to Adrian “Please take me with you” you lean over the table, spoon in hand “I didn’t think there were any towns nearby so please let me come” you wave the spoon and look to Adrian with big eyes. He sighs

“I’ll think about it” you look down defeated, yeah right he will you tell yourself. You sit back down and finish your lunch.

The rest of the day is uneventful, you find a study with a large window overlooking the ruins and spend the rest of the afternoon drawing them, even coming up with hypothetical ways the ruins could have looked in their prime. You don’t really notice the day turn into dusk as you were far to busy imagining the great house that was once there. You were also far too preoccupied to see Adrian enter the study and call your name not one, but three times. When you finally notice him you jump half out your skin.

“Dinner time” he tells you with an air of amusement to his face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys weren’t aware but Bill Nighy and Richard Armitage both voice act in the show so that’s a lil bit of the dramatic irony i like sprinkling in :)


	3. Please don’t get done for witchcraft

After being scared half to death by the only other person in the large castle you follow him to the kitchen for food, you look to the table and see two plates with a fish and salad on both plates, you smile at the food and sit down at one of the chairs, Adrian sits down on the other. About halfway through the meal you contemplate bringing up the conversation about you going to town with Adrian, but you decide otherwise. As far as you are aware he’s basically already told you no, so what would be the point on pushing the subject further? 

“I thought about it” Adrian states out of nowhere, almost like he had half a conversation in his head, which he probably did. You look up to him with a tilt of your head, “About bringing you to town with me” he adds in clarification, you nod. If Adrian was bringing up the topic maybe he had changed his mind? “I think its would be a better idea to bring you with me, there’s no knowing the mischief you’d get up to knowing you’re alone” he explains, you look up to the male with a grin “We leave at first light” he adds before you’re able to say anything.

You make a series of noises which could be equated to something like a verbal keysmash “Adrian I’m literally so happy that you’re taking me with you!” you exclaim basically vibrating in your seat. Holy shit you had never expected the blond to change his mind on the situation. You would never be able to hide the excitement of your first authentic trip to a ye olde town, any modern day replication of historical towns will pale in comparison to whatever you see tomorrow.

“Just try not to be convicted if witchcraft while we’re out” he states extremely bluntly.

Adrian spends the rest of the evening debriefing you on the town and how to act. You ask lots of questions and take lots of mental notes, the last thing you want to do is make a fool of yourself and get yourself and Adrian in trouble. After finishing dinner and cleaning up the blond advises you to turn in early due to the early morning. As you leave Adrian tells you that he’ll wake you up in the morning if you sleep in.

And sleep in you did. Accidentally, of course, but you still managed to be woken up by Adrian before the sun had even thought of rising. And resist did you. It started off with groans and scooting over to the other side of the bed. You don’t really remember kicking Adrian in the stomach but after getting tossed to the floor and Adrian cursing about how you literally kicked him. Damn you wake up fast after that. You shoot up beside the blond and apologise profusely even offering to look at whatever damage you had inflicted on the male. Adrian tells you to get dressed as coldly as he could possibly muster and leaves your room.

You get dressed for the most likely long day ahead. As you walk past your sketchbook you get the bright idea of bring it and a pencil or two with you, at least if you get bored on the way, or even if Adrian makes you sit somewhere you would be able to occupy yourself until Adrian got back from his errands. You walk downstairs a slight jump in your step and you open the kitchen door to see the blond packing a basket of food, perhaps for breakfast or lunch. You sincerely apologise to Adrian for kicking him. He seems to accept it for the most part, so you cant really argue with that too much.

Adrian ushers you to follow him, so that’s what you do. The walk to the stables to the side of the castle really didn’t take very long and there wasn’t much conversation between the two of you. The first thing you notice are two horses hitched to a carriage, whatever Adrian was planning on getting was certainly going to be more than what two horses could carry. Maybe he plans to stockpile for Winter? You couldn’t really tell what time of the year it was due to the fact the castle seems to be constantly warm due to some kind of central heating and also when you had gone outside you didn’t really clock the temperature so whatever season it is right now is beyond you.

Adrian gives you the option to sit with him while he controls the horses, or you could sit inside the cart and try and nap. You decide on the former and sit up front, you make sure to leave enough room for the blond and soon enough he sits beside you and off you go towards town. 

Nothing could prepare you for how barren and quiet the trip is, sure you travelled down country roads in the past but you’d never go far without meeting another car or an estate. So much road seems to just be worn dirt tracks and trees, you really didn’t want to complain, the air was clearer than the city you had been in the days before appearing in Adrians home. What probably did it for you was the crispness of the air in your lungs, you could deduce from the air alone that it had to be the end of autumn. If you were to hazard a guess you would guess it’s mid to late November.

As you sit beside Adrian you gather some confidence to get your sketchbook out. You know Adrian would look over your shoulder while you draw so you avoid working on the sketch of him, instead you start drawing some features in the distance. True to your assumption you feel Adrian move beside you and watch you draw away. You don’t say anything, you know how calming it can be to watch someone draw. You remember watching your Grandmother draw for you as a child, maybe it was thanks to her that you picked up art. Shame she turned out to be a racist, that really ruined your perception on her. You wished the rose glasses could stay over your eyes for longer. You hadn’t realised you drifted away so in thought that when you looked back at your page you had a completely covered page of the landscape ahead. As you near the point of interest of your piece you jot down a few more details with a smile.

And that’s what you did until you hit the town as daylight finally graced the world. Your attention averted from the sketchbook between your hands and to the town in front of you. You slowly take in each shop and home. You notice a distinct line between where all the homes are situated to where the stalls of the market are set up even to where the more permanent shops like blacksmiths, clothing stores and the tavern. You cant help but wipe the grin you have off your face, sure the town smells like cow shit no thanks to the small pens of cows littered around the town, but damn was this place beautiful.

Adrian parks up the horses at some kind of metal bar to keep the horses from straying and you both jump off the carriage. You give your muscles a good stretch, your bones seem to click back in place. You notice Adrian moving away from the cart towards some food stalls in the market, you take a light jog to catch up with him. Once you do it doesn’t take long for you to stare at everything in awe again, everything sold here was thanks to intense labour and probably the most ethically sourced produce you could get. 

Adrian walks towards a stall with bags of flour and yeast. You notice the standing store behind this stall was a bakery, the flour you see before you was probably excess product. This flour probably sells better than some of the bread. Adrian calls your name to get your attention and tells you to pick up a bag of flour and some yeast, so you comply. Sure the bag is a little heavy for your arms, but if you walk quickly enough you’ll be back at the cart in no time. Finally reaching the cart you dump the bag into the back, and not two minutes later Adrian is beside you placing another two beside your bag. That man has to have in humane strength right? You internally laugh at the thought.

Before you know it the morning zooms past with different supplies going into the wagon. It seems like anything that can’t really be foraged for is bought and is bought to last for as long as possible in this era. 

You and Adrian sit beside a window in the tavern you spotted earlier and sip at large tankards of weak ale. You never really expected Adrian to be an ale drinker but considering what you know about this time period drinking water probably wouldn’t be the funkiest idea.

That’s when it hits you.

Over the last two- now three- days it hadn’t yet sunk in how far away you are away from home in both distance and time. You look down into the tankard. Just going to the simple market and seeing how these people live and socialise really starts to weigh on you. Will you ever go home? Will you ever see your friends again? Would you be able to pick up your aspirations of being a big time artist? How would you be able to binge watch the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings? How would you play D&D with all your dumb nerd friends that you love so much? Sure, being here is certainly different from being at home and probably for the best considering all the gross substances going into your body. Could you even get back home? You have no idea how you got here in the first place, you wouldn’t be able to make a hypothesis on how to get home. 

Fuck.

You start crying. You don’t really mean to let the waterworks go but all these thoughts feel so loud in your head. Each thought stumble over each other to become the loudest and most prevalent of them all. While thinking of everything your brain can you see an image of the two corpses outside Adrians home again. You couldn’t be certain if this was so common unspoken practice, nonetheless it makes you queasy for a list of reasons. The first being what had they done to meet such a fate? And what was the deed? What if you accidentally do the same and end up on a pike? More questions you tried to repress when you first saw the bodies keep surfacing. Your breathing quickens, it feels like something is heavy on your chest. And the tears won’t stop falling. Everything is piling up on you. You feel like an overstuffed closet ready to bust at the seams.

You feel someone touch your hand.

You look up from the tankard and straight into Adrians eyes. Of course your tears alerted the blond, a part of you really wished he didn’t. He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, he lets you catch your breath. “It’s okay to cry” he tells you gripping your hand a little tighter. You nod and wipe your eyes not breaking eye contact. How can a pair of golden eyes be so grounding? Adrian doesn’t say anything but you can feel him nonverbally asking you what’s wrong.

“I’m sorry” you apologise after getting a handle on as many of your emotions as you can “I just realised my predicament” you add after another couple seconds of silence. You knew that Adrian understood what you meant but you wanted to say something just vague enough that anyone eavesdropping on your little moment could read into your situation completely wrong. 

Adrian squeezes your hand again jumping you out if your thoughts again “It must be odd seeing everything catch up to you like this” he says in a soft, consoling tone. You nod in agreement finally breaking eye contact and looking down to your ale again. You feel Adrian take his hand off yours and take a swig of his drink, not quite finishing it, “I’ve got a few things to pick up still, would you like to come with or sit in the cart?” he asks before standing up.


	4. Sorry for being an emotional wreck

You chose the latter and stayed in the cart for the majority of the afternoon. You make quick work of your portion of the picnic while you wait for Adrian to finish his chores. He comes back every twenty to thirty minutes with more things to load into the wagon, you become chief packer and pack everything the best you can for the most room.

A few hours after the incident in the tavern and a handful of visits with more items Adrian beckons you out the cart and takes you towards the tailors. He informs you that he doesn’t have winter outfits around the house for you so he wants to commission you a handful of outfits and a couple winter cloaks so you don’t freeze to death when going out. You follow him into the tailors shop and a sweet looking lady beckons you to the back. Adrian doesn’t follow you leaving you to have privacy.

You follow the old lady who stands you up on a small pedestal and immediately starts measuring you up with a tape measure. The tailor asks you a handful of questions probably to get a feel for what kind of clothes she should make, or maybe even a simple, light conversation. She doesn’t ask you any intrusive questions so you don’t mind telling the old lady the truth. 

After about thirty minutes the old lady finishes up and escorts you back out to the front where Adrian is sat waiting for you. “We should be able to have the garments ready in a fortnight” she tells the blond, who nods, and thanks her for her service.

You walk out of the tailor with the feeling of walking out of a cinema, you feel a little dazed and what time of year is it? Hah, and here you were worried that you wouldn’t be able to replicate some feelings from the modern world. You chuckle at the thought.

“What’s so funny?” Adrian asks looking down to you. You smile, tap your nose and speed up and sit in the cart once more. You haul yourself into the nest you had created between all the supplies and watch Adrian come up to the back of the wagon, “We’re going to leave soon, I’ve just got to pick up the last thing and we’ll be off” her informs you before walking away. You contemplate sitting in your nest for the journey back but seeing as how the sun is beginning to set you couldn’t miss seeing the scenery in the dances of twilight. So after deliberation you hoist yourself up into the seat at the front, your sketchbook forgotten somewhere in the supplies and patiently wait for Adrian to return.

And that’s what he does, not ten minutes later Adrian places the final thing in the back of the wagon and sits beside you. He asks if you’re ready and you nod and alas off you go. For the first part of the journey it was quiet, you don’t really make much conversation apart from odd questions about the scenery or the load. It was nice and calming and you didn’t really have much time to stay by your thoughts despite the quietness.

How you wish it stayed that quiet. You notice Adrian sit up straight from his slumped position as if he’s straining to hear something. Wolves perhaps? Some other kind of predator? You watch Adrian who then looks in one direction and pulls the wagon to a holt. Your hairs stand on edge and your eyes start darting in all directions. A pack of wolves maybe? You don’t have any defence on you, and there’s no way Adrian could take on a pack of—

What the fuck is that?

You see a tall creature, definitely at least two meters tall. You can feel the beast leaking with all the hatred of men. What the fuck is that? It snarls and you sink back into your chair fear coming over you. You look at the beasts legs, they’re long. There’s no way you could outrun that thing, there’s no way you could fight that thing. Fuck.

You hear another, lower snarl from your right. It’s a little shorter than the thing on your left. It’s almost comical for a split second, it looks exactly like a werewolf from Underworld. You could laugh if you weren’t so frozen in fucking fear. This had to be a mirage, right? There’s no way something so horrific could exist. This isn’t something of normal human nature.

You feel a sudden pressure relieve from next to you. And Adrian isn’t there anymore. Maybe your brain was ticking slowly but you feel like you saw Adrian move in a inhumanly fast way. But that had to be a figment of your imagination. You could blame your brain for working so slow. The two... monsters... fall to the floor without their heads. You feel your heart stop and you take a large breath.

“What the holy mother of all fucks just happened” you ask as Adrian sits beside you, and wipes off his hands of slick, black blood. You could feel yourself puke in your mouth a little. You watch Adrian sigh and curse under his breath.

“Let’s get back home, I’ll explain as much as I can” he tells you looking you in the eyes. You nod once, still horrifically shaken about this whole ordeal. The blond encourages the horses to move and they comply with their master.

After of a few minutes of replaying the situation in your head a number of times you feel the man next to you wrap an arm around your shoulder and bring you towards the warmth of his torso. You steady your breathing and watch the road. Jesus, maybe there could be a logical excuse for what happened. You watch the road your ears straining to hear anything else on the road.

“Don’t worry about anything else appearing, there shouldn’t be anything else on the road” Adrian tells you trying to console you “I’ve known about those two the past few weeks but thankfully I found them now” he adds squeezing your shoulder trying to comfort you. You’re not really sure how much it actually comforts you. Although, you do nod in silent agreement. 

The rest of the ride is thankfully uneventful. You’re not sure how many reality warping situations you could handle. You continue to watch the road ahead of you, your eyes glued to the road just by the horses head. Adrian doesn’t say anything perhaps thinking that’s it better if you just think rather then talk right now. He’s not wrong.

When you get back to the castle is to help unpack and go to bed and try to rationalise what had happened. But to your luck Adrian stops you “It’s about time I explained some things” he tells you after taking the horses off the cart, you follow him back out the stables and towards the ruins. You both walk towards a large pit which you had noticed the day before. As you open your mouth to speak Adrian shushes you “Ask as many questions as you want once we’re in the hold” he instructs you, you nod and step onto the pulley system beside Adrian.

You’re both lowered down into the hold. You take note that a staircase was once here but there was a fight here, perhaps in the last month or two. You’re able to deduce this from the skull with remnants of black flesh trying desperately to hold onto the bone. The skull is inches away from a large piece of debris, you can hazard a guess of its demise.

As the pulley elevator comes to a stop Adrian beckons you off the elevator and you follow him towards a large, cold room. You don’t fail to notice the hundreds, possibly thousands of books in this hold. You follow the blond to the bottom of the expansive room which holds more bookshelves and a lectern in the centre of the room. Adrian stops at a desk and beckons you to sit, you do so and wordlessly the man walks off.

After five or so minutes Adrian comes back with an armful of books for, presumably you, to read. The blond places the stack of half a dozen books on the table. You sigh, sure you want to find out about what you encountered on the road but you’ll be damned if you want to read books willingly.


	5. If I pretend I can’t read, I don’t have to right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry about updating this like almost every day. I just know if I give it too much time between each time I write the little brain worm I’ve got will wiggle its way out, so you will get like daily updates.
> 
> Maybe even two today cause I’ve finished writing earlier than I normally would

After Adrian dropped the books off he informs you that he’ll make some dinner and you get started on the books. You stare at the books for an extended amount of time before sighing and opening the top one ‘On the subject of Night Creatures’ is the name of the book, you open the first page and start trying to take in the information by the candle light. 

Ten minutes later and you’re sure you’ve read this page at least three times. Sure there’s a bit of information going into you brain like the fact they come out at night because they’re allergic to vitamin D or something. You can almost hear one of your friends over your shoulder telling you are a Night Creature. You did make any excuse to be inside during daytime hours back at home. Even the job you worked was only night shifts because you wanted to do art in your waking hours. You smile at the thought, the aspiration to open a studio with your other close art friend wanders around your brain. You remember their distinct difference in art style to yours. It would have made your studio interesting.

“Working hard i presume?” Adrian asks setting two bowls down at the edge of the desk and making room so any spillages wouldn’t ruin the age old books. You shake your head a little.

“I was to begin with,” you admit “but something jogged on a memory from back home” you smile, looking at Adrian. You feel as though if you speak too much about the memory you could simply cry about it. What you’d give to go back to your simpler time, sure you have rent to pay but at this moment you’d take rent over death by night creatures. Adrian doesn’t press the matter further and slides you, your food.

Stew.

A memory of making stew with a group of friends punches you in the face. You remember seeing all of them happily cutting and prepping for your favourite meal of Winter. How could you not love this meal? You remember after prepping the food you put it on a slow cook and spent the day Christmas shopping. Sure you didn’t necessarily believe in the whole Christianity and christmas thing but it was something you liked to celebrate with friends. A year or so ago you and your friends just started using the pagan term, Yule. Sure you shared presents still on the 25th, but there is a old pagan hill that you’d visit for the solstice. The one solstice celebration turned into celebrating the summer one too. You close your eyes a second to stop yourself from crying at the memory and start eating the food.

Thinking a little of the memory you wonder if Adrian celebrates something similar to christmas. If he does you could try and make something to begin thanking him for everything he’s done for you. You look to Adrian who seems to be flicking through a book. You look over and see a passage on vampires. 

“If asked you if those exist to will you have to break the bad news to me?” you ask in a half joking tone, Adrian nods

“I’m afraid so, I’m sure there’s many things you can think of that actually exist” he informs you making eye contact. You nod

“Should I be worried about Cthulhu?” you ask with a little, albeit nervous laugh

“What the fuck is a Cthulhu?” Adrian asks, you thank every god you can think of. So there’s vampires but no eldritch entity’s. That’s a little less overbearing then it could be. You explain Cthulhu to Adrian who takes in the information you have supplied him and add a hasty ‘well its fiction anyway’ to stop him, maybe you, from worrying.

Dinner is filled with light chatter about the different supernatural entities and things about general creatures of the night. You move onto the subject of vampires towards the end of the meal you mentions the legions of different renditions of vampires, which all seem to be accurate in some regard. You wonder if the authors of some of these vampires know vampires or are them. Vampires in Hollywood! You laugh at the thought, sounds like a shitty movie from before your time.

Adrian answers all your questions truthfully, or as truthful in his current knowledge. He tells himself that if you ask questions about his father he’ll answer truthfully and let you read between the lines. He wonders if you already know that he’s one. Considering his not too subtle indicators including, but not limited to, two corpses outside the main entrance and you know his scientifically advanced castle that he resides in. For the record, you don’t have much of an idea. You have a feeling that Adrians father might have been immortal because of the home but no real concrete proof. You wouldn’t dare and ask such a question in fear you’d offend Adrian.

“Things like love must be experienced in such a different way to vampires then to mortals” you state, almost to yourself. Adrian tilts his head wondering what you mean by that “You know because the reason why mortals find significant others is because of the fear of death and your legacy dying” you pause “Vampires are immortal to the most part, living centuries, your legacy is firmly cemented if you manage to avoid hunters your whole undead life” you add tapping your chin with the stew spoon, “Like I’m sure there are vampires who have fallen in love with eachother, maybe even humans, but I doubt they’ll ever feel the same compassion the human would. Due to their lifespan” you look to Adrian, he gives you the look of a Maths teacher when you get the answer wrong but they don’t even understand where you went wrong.

In that moment Adrian wants to bring up his father and what he did for love. He watches you pull a book forewords and try to concentrate on the words again.

“Dracula loved” Adrian speaks his voice feeling weaker then he expected it to. You heard him and look towards the blond who looks past you “His wife was a human, she was a” he pauses “A woman of medicine, a legitimate doctor” he pauses again trying to think of how to say what he wants to “She was burned for witchcraft by the people she was trying to cure” Adrian seems to reminisce over this woman, “My- Dracula died a little that day, he set out to rid the world of humans, which would eventually kill the other vampires” he pauses again collecting himself “Dracula loved my- that woman with all his being and called a war on humanity over her death” he tells you, still not looking at you directly, likely scared that he’d start crying over his dead parents again.

You look down with the smallest “I see” possible, you blink a couple times and look back to Adrian “Dracula and that woman, they were close to you?” you ask delicately. Adrian nods once looking down at the book he was reading over dinner. You place a hand on Adrians thigh, he jumps a little bit, but doesn’t flinch away. You give his thigh a gentle squeeze “It must have been hard to see someone close to you do that” he nods once more and looks back to you, is golden eyes greeting your own. His eyes show his compromise in this situation, it seems as though a part of whatever wall Adrian kept up has a few lose bricks. And you hope to maybe take a peek behind his wall between the bricks.

“They were” he starts to answer, his gaze shifts down to his lap then back up to your eyes. You give his thigh another gentle squeeze, you want to tell him everything’s going to be okay and give him the fattest hug he’s ever had. But you exercise restraint, you know such a movement like that could scare him off. “They were my parents” he informs you with some newfound conviction. You do the math in your head. So he’s half human, half vampire. Adrian watches you do the math and as you come to the conclusion he expects you to flinch away and curse you out. But you don’t. You smile at him sadly and give a nod after you finish doing the math.

“That must have been hard, seeing your father like that” you attempt to console. Sure it is normally hard to console people, but with your own parental issues you sympathise more if anything. Adrian looks down to your hand on his thigh “You should tell me about them both one day” you tell him. You move your hand to his head and stroke his hair tenderly before giving his head a small kiss. After the small gesture he looks back to you with a small smile. 

“I’d like that” he responds and you see a brick quietly push itself out of his wall. You want to look what’s inside but you know better than to pry in a state like this. A few moments of silence befall the both of you, the silence is lonely. But you don’t mind. Adrian suddenly stands and takes the bowls “I’ll be back” he tells you and walks off. After he leaves you slump down in the chair you’re sat in finally taking a moment to take in the information you had learned. You shake your head in your hands and stare at the pages in front of you blindly.

A son to see his mother dead in such a horrific way and to see his father blind with grief must have been difficult to see. Your mind wonders to Adrian thinking about how much of a kind soul he is really, he has reluctance about things like touch and over the past few days you’ve barely seen him. Making today the most time you’ve spent with him. You suppose him seeing you so vulnerable earlier put you both on the same playing field. You are both dealing with creatures of your past. Just you’ve been able to completely detach yourself from them, yet Adrian is living daily with the deeds he’s seen committed. Your heart goes out to him.

There’s no way you’re leaving this place without helping him a little. You promise to curse to everything above that if you get sent back before you get to help you’ll personally send hellfire to the heavens. You’re not really sure how you’d do the hellfire thing, but you planted your threat.

You do your best to take in the words on the pages but you find yourself bored quickly. So you take to wondering the infinite bookshelves that would make any hoarder quiver in fear. You land in a particular section about witchcraft and you choose a book that calls out to you. ‘Destruction magic- for Novices’ you open the first page and find a spell about fire type magic. The way its worded makes you feel like the user could be a pokemon. You laugh a little at the thought and read how to start using said magic. It didn’t seem too hard. You just had to work out how to use intention, then you should be hunky dory. You flick through a few more pages of the book, to find tutorials on how to lay down runes for each of the elements. You laugh at the thought of being an Avatar. How many pop culture references could you pull from this book? You also wonder about where spells from games like dungeons and dragons came from, could it be from actual spell books? Maybe you could master fireball and become the most cliche Wizard player known to man.

“There you are” Adrian says announcing his presence, you look up to him and he walks beside you “Thinking of picking up witchcraft?” he asks looking at the page you were looking at, you shrug

“There’s no harm in giving it a good go” you tell him looking down at the book, “Just there’s so much theory, I don’t think I could wrap my tiny man brain around it” you add gesturing to the page and a half of theory before you. Adrian nods.

“I can try to help you” he offers without thinking, you look up to him and nod excitedly 

“Well I am a visual learner so that would be a ton of help!” you exclaim closing the book and holding it in the air in victory

“We wont actually know if you’ve got magic in you until you try a spell though” he informs you “So don’t be too disappointed if you can’t cast anything” he adds, you nod with a grin.

“Of course!” you nod again “I just know I have a natural affinity to magic” you exclaim playfully, you notice Adrian chuckle in amusement.

What you’d do to see him laugh.


	6. I won’t set fire to this place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry. I might get on and post a 3rd chapter today
> 
> Who knows

A few days slip past with the occasional part of reading about the different monsters of the night, but mostly you’ve been finding different parts of the castle and drawing them. The thought of making Adrian a portrait of himself lingers at the back of your mind but your brain constantly remembers that if you wanted to paint him you’d need to use oil paints. How you could curse out oil paints. Truth be told, you haven’t ever really felt the need to use oilpaints, you’ve always opted to graphite, charcoal, and you even relied on your old drawing tablet a lot. Canvas just seems too scary. But you should really start on the painting before its too late. You have all your references ready as over the last few days you’ve seen a little more of Adrian in passing so collecting small, and large, sketches of the male was pretty easy to do.

Neither of you have spoken about either of your moments you both had, over food Adrian would open up a little about his childhood and his parents. He had such a nice family. You thank everything above every time that he doesn’t ask about yours, you don’t want to ruin all the nice things about what he said about his parents. And the less time thinking of your own was better for your sanity anyways. 

It had to be dinner time when Adrian entered the room you were in and found you lying on the floor, sleeping in front of the fire the two of you had set up that morning. You’re slumped over your arm your sketchbook exposed for the world and her aunt to see. Before waking you Adrian leans over and notices a two page spread of him. That spoils the surprise. He smiles faintly and flicks through the pages of the sketchbook that don his face. There was a way that you captured his face that made him look melancholy or even constantly deep in thought. Is this how he looks to you? It must be if you draw him so. There’s a small note that’s written at the bottom of one of the pages. It’s scrawly and not neat, it seems like a mid sketch thought that you had to get out on paper ‘I want to see him smile. Authentically, it would need to reach his eyes. I think that smile would shine brighter then the sun’. It feels almost rude for Adrian to read the note, but he does so regardless. He smiles a little at the note, how he could ask the same of you in that regard. He tells himself that if you want to see him genuinely smile he wants the favour to be returned. He wants to see your smile. He guesses your smile would make stars look dim. He chuckles a little at the similar metaphor he used for you.

He notices you shift to which he responds by closing the sketchbook beside you and nudging you away. You roll over facing away from Adrian. He hopes you don’t go for another gut kick. That hurt a little more than it should have considering you seem defenceless. He calls your name with a softness that he doesn’t even realise you could conjure and nudges you again. You open an eye and peer at the blond beside you “mfh dinner?” you ask looking at him, he nods and you stretch out and stand up. “That fire is dangerous, makes me knackered” you tell him with a groggy voice. Adrian nods thinking of a memory where his mother would sit in here and a young Adrian would fall asleep happily by the fire. Perhaps he’ll tell you that memory over food.

To which he does. He explains that his mother had tried teaching him some biology when she finally gave up when she found something of interest that she wanted to look into. Child Adrian didn’t complain and fell asleep. You watch him recount the memory with a small smile. Life in the castle must have been great, just Adrians downside was that he never really had friends growing up.

The two poppets of his friends that sit on the shelf tell you of his loneliness. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to join the poppet league. You think about it a little more, joining the poppet league would mean you’d have to leave, much like his friends. Maybe you don’t have to join the poppets anytime soon.

Tonight was the night Adrian wanted to ask about your upbringing. You rarely speak about it, and for good reason on the most part, but he can’t help but wonder what kind of mischief a child you got up to. “What were you like as a child?” Adrian asks carefully, he wants to know but he’s worried about what he’d hear. Mostly a morbid curiosity. But he did share many things of his childhood with you, you know what he was like as a child. Adrian on the other hand? Knows nothing about you.

“Hmm” you hum trying to think of a memory that wouldn’t send you cursing out your parents for the billionth time in your life. You explain to him how whenever you’d visit your grandparents you would walk along beaches for hours on end. You explain to him your natural affinity to water, you go to blame it on your star signs, only to remember they’re all air signs. You wave that off without much thought. You go into detail of memories you remember on the waves with grandparents from either side of your family. Adrian listens closely learning thing about you. He wants to ask about your parents but the way you avoid talking about them altogether makes him hesitate to ask. So, thankfully, he doesn’t.

“Off the topic of you causing problems on beaches. When do you want to start your magic lessons?” Adrian ask tilting his head a little. You ponder for a moment. You know how unfunctional you are first thing in the morning and you don’t want to put Adrian through waking you up again.

“How about after lunch tomorrow?” You ask matching Adrians head tilt. He nods in agreement. You don’t notice him thank everything above that you didn’t say the morning.

After dinner you didn’t really feel like sitting by yourself for the rest of the evening so you offer to sit in the lounge with the fireplace again. You like the company of other people and sitting alone for hours a day gave you the feeling that you were going mad. Adrian accepts the offer, so, after washing dishes you both make your way back to the lounge. 

Adrian occupies himself by finding a book and reading it. It looks to be some kind of medical book, on burns? Does Adrian expect you to burn yourself with fire tomorrow? You don’t really argue that point, you’d most definitely find a way to singe yours or Adrians eyebrows off. You sit on the opposite side of the couch Adrian sits on, you let your legs stretch out on the couch, your feet barely touch his legs. You pull out your sketchbook and start drawing the scene.

This time not all the focus of the piece is on Adrian, you make a point in drawing the entire room. The room is too much of a contrast to Adrians brighter complexion to not use it. Even though Adrian is drawn to the right of the page he seems to take centre stage on the page. Maybe that was done purposely, or not, that’s a secret you’ll never spill.

Hours pass in this comfortable limbo, you finally finish the piece you are working on, you want it to look as good as possible. When you finally tear your gaze away from the sketchbook you see Adrian leaning on his hand and peacefully napping. He looks almost ethereal in this state, like a peaceful God.

You blink twice. Now now you mustn’t go comparing every insanely beautiful man to a God you tell yourself. Sure this is the first person you had compared to as a God but your mind wanted to make the joke regardless. But god damn is he pretty. You watch him snooze for a few minutes, you have to resist the urge to draw his sleeping face. It would come of as far too creepy. You tell yourself. You watch him for a second longer, before he jolts awake, the fear of thousands in his eyes.

He had let his guard down so much by falling asleep. Adrian hadn’t planned on the little nap but the fire matched with your presence just lulled him to sleep. Not in an offensive way, but in a more domestic kind of way. Wait. No stop thinking about being domestic with people. He tells himself. You’ve tried that once already, look how that turned out. His mind wonders to the corpses outside the castle. He wonders if you think about them. He can’t really find a good way to start a conversation about the bodies without blaming himself. Adrian has accepted the fact that he didn’t have to kill them, he didn’t have to-

You call his name and his eyes whip to greet yours. You smile in a comforting sort of way. “How about you go to bed?” you ask leaning forwards and placing a hand on his shoulder, he pulls back from your hand so you don’t pursue the touch further. Adrian agrees with you with only a nod of his head and he gets up and goes to leave. He glances at the fire still going “Don’t worry about the fire” you tell him “I’ll make sure it doesn’t burn down the castle while you sleep” you add. After he seems assured enough he walks out the room and towards his bedroom.

Why were you showing him such kindness? He asks himself. Why don’t you pry into all the goings on in the castle? Why aren’t you trying to- he stops himself. Why aren’t you anything like the intruders steaked at his door? He stops mid walk. Maybe you were building yourself up to kill him in the final moment? But that doesn’t feel like something you’d do. Adrian presses a hand to his head and lets out a sigh. Why can’t humans be one thing? Why do they have to be complicated creatures with their emotions? Adrian isn’t sure if those questions are aimed at you or at himself. Maybe his human side makes him too emotional? Makes him yearn for touch, for companionship. The said companionship being platonic rather than romantic. Adrian doesn’t like to dwell on thoughts of being romantic with people. Especially considering the- there he goes again. He stops himself. Thinking about the traitors again.

He sighs and finally continues walking towards his room. Maybe if he remembers your consoling look enough he could dream of that instead of the nightmares plaguing his every closed eyelid.

After watching Adrian leave you’re left with your own thoughts. You think back to a time when you couldn’t sleep in your own bed. You remember when every closed eye reminded you of what happened. You look to the fire which was beginning to die out you smile at it. Maybe if you can help Adrian get back on the figurative solid ground you could learn ways to help yourself in the process. Adrian doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would let you be the only one giving help. You like that about him in that regard. Not like you deserved a reward but you remember helping friends get back out of a rut, or an addiction which often made your mental health tank. Maybe you could finally get yourself back on your feet.

Once the fire died you find a balcony to have a smoke from. Usually a good hit of nicotine could get your mind off of whatever current circumstance decides to hit you. This hit feels a little.. dirty.. so to speak. Maybe to help yourself you should ween yourself off the tarry tobacco. You wonder if Wallachia has discovered tobacco yet. Maybe once you finish this pack you could find some real smoking tobacco that doesn’t have all the gross shit in it.

You scrunch your brows, course if you wanted to quit you’d have to steer away from the weed and the occasional dirtier substance. But you’re sure that’d be the easy part. You note that it would be about weekend time at home so you half miss the smoking parties you indulged yourself in on saturdays. You miss them, not for the substances just for the people. You can’t help having fun intoxicated and meeting people at parties.

Your mind wanders to the booze. Sure you’d quit that later. Turning to alcohol has been your longest addiction so it would be harder to shake that one off. You finish the cigarette off and glance towards the entrance of the castle your mind thinking of the corpses. You summarise that was Adrians addiction. The addiction being his own despair. There’s no way to close a chapter with the dead bodies still out on the table. Your mind recalls a time a flatmate left your shared home abruptly one night with nothing more than a ‘I wont be back’ note. You found out later that she completely left the friendship group to avoid you. Her things littered the house for months till you decided to get rid of it all. You were hanging onto her memory.

In some respects its a form of self harm, constantly reminding him of his trauma. Whatever it was, was definitely horrific enough to put out warnings like that. You look to your hands gripping the railing and sigh a little bit. You both need something to get your mind off your own thoughts, hopefully this magic lesson would do the trick for the time being. If not, you’re sure you can drag Adrian somewhere for a day away from his past, away from the castle.

You sigh to yourself again and walk back inside. You don’t notice Adrian watching you from his bedroom window steeped in similar thoughts. 

As Adrian turns to his bed after watching you. His brain is cast to the worried look he gave you after he scared himself awake. Nobody has shown him such warmth in such along time. You feel like a fireplace, not much unlike the one he fell asleep in front of earlier. You’re warm, and cozy but in many respects he sees the wall you’ve built around you, hiding your deepest thoughts and feelings. Much like his own walls. However, whatever traumas you have changed you into someone who doesn’t like to dwell on themselves, doesn’t like spending time with their thoughts. 

Adrian could let himself bury himself in his thoughts for hours. Maybe that’s what makes him so melancholy. Like the sketches of him you’ve draw. You however, don’t like thinking about the things that have traumatised you, you put on a mask that nothing really effects you. Adrian summarises you’d hurt yourself to help others and refuse think about how it hurt you. Adrian turns away from his bed and walks back downstairs. 

He can’t face the bed tonight.


	7. I like bread

Your sleep is uncomfortable to say the least. Memories of horrible events play in your head on repeat. Sometimes more things happen in the dream than actually happened in real life. 

That doesn’t stop the experience feeling any less real and hurtful.

You finally jump awake with a shout. You curse your brain out for taking so long to wake you. You question the brains reason to have to replay events like that in your head over and over again. You swing your legs off your bed and onto the floor. The floor is cold against your feet, but its grounding. If anything the fact that there’s an absence of carpet on the fact reminds you that the people that hurt you simply do not exist.

You sigh and push yourself off your bed and look into your mirror. God, from what you can make out in the dark is the large bags under your eyes, you can see the slight glisten of tears on your face. How pathetic. You tell yourself. Crying over something that’s already happened. You shake your head at your reflection. Your eyes look at your body and reprimand it for simply existing. You also seem to find a second to reprimand the horrific nightgown that clings onto your sweaty body. What 15th century idiot came up with this design? Ridiculous.

Without much thought you find yourself leaving your bedroom and walking the halls for a little bit. A clock in the entrance room of the castle informs you that its 3:30am. There’s no way you’d be able to fall asleep now and wake up before breakfast. You internally decide that you wont be sleeping until after magic practice, at least. You could probably push yourself till after dinner. 

You catch yourself staring at a large portrait of three people. You immediately clock who each of these people must be. Especially with a teenaged Adrian in the middle of the painting. You notice the two other people in the painting second. It must be both of Adrians parents. They’re beautiful, is the conclusion that you come to. You chuckle at the thought of one of your friends telling you that they’re milf, dilf solidarity. You look at the painting a little longer without many thoughts circling around your head. 

You eventually walk away from the painting. You seem to feel a little better after looking at the painting. Maybe Adrians dead parents bring you more comfort then your own alive ones? Likely. After said thought you find yourself walking in the direction of the kitchen. Maybe its the thought of food that entices you. Hah, there’s no maybe about that. Eating feelings was the one thing your parents bestowed upon you. That and trauma. You shake the thought away and walk into the kitchen. You see Adrian sat beside the oven with his eyes closed, the scent of bread lingers in the air so you can only assume what he’s been busy making. You sit on the floor beside a cupboard with snacks inside that you scoped out a few days ago. 

“Is that you?” Adrian asks your name following after a beat or so. 

“Yeah” you respond looking over at the male, his eyes are still closed and he hasn’t moved an inch. You take a few pastry snacks out of the cupboard. You notice that one of them is a sweetroll. You chuckle. Somebody steal your sweetroll? You shake your head at your amusing thought.

“Adrian” you call for his name, he hums in response “Do you ever feel lonely in this place?” you ask taking a bite of the sweetroll. Recently you have been feeling lonelier in this massive castle, despite the fact you have seen him more often then you’ve seen other housemates in the past, you cant shake the feeling of everything feeling empty.

“Horrifically so sometimes” he opens his eyes and looks to you through the table. He freezes upon seeing your nightgown. You see a look of fear wash over him, as if he relived a horrific moment a thousand times over. You go to move forwards to comfort him, but he seems to recoil. You move back again. Adrian throws you his jacket that was sat beside him, it hits you in the face. You put the jacket on without a word. As you hope that you did the right thing Adrian relaxes.

“I’m sorry” you apologise as you do up the buttons. Seeing Arian so fearful like that scared you a little. You wonder what could scare someone so strong, someone who killed two night creatures without a second hesi- you wipe the thought from your head. You’re in no position to ask such questions. Even as mere thoughts. 

You take a bite of the pastry in your hand a tense silence overbearing the room. You have to break it up somehow. But, you’re not really sure what conversation to bring into the room, considering how-

“What are you doing up so early anyway?” Adrian asks finally breaking the silence. His eyes are watching you. His eyes had been on you this whole time. You look down and shake your head. 

“My dreams-“ you start closing your eyes tight hoping that it would make you forget the dreams. It doesn’t help. “I-“ you go to continue, all your thoughts of the dreams playing jenga in your brain. One wrong piece moved you’d come toppling down and you’d cry again.

“I understand” he tells you as he scoots towards you across the floor, he sits beside you before continuing “I’m down here for a similar circumstance, but I never fell asleep” he confesses and you not.

“Aren’t you tired?” you ask looking at the pastry in your hand. Adrian shakes his head and helps himself to a pastry

“Half vampire” he reminds you. Of course. It seems like a stupid fact to forget about, but here you are having forgotten it. Maybe you forgot due to how new you are to the supernatural. Or maybe you forgot it because of how warm and human he feels to you. Either is up for debate.

“That reminds me” you remember not moving your gaze from your hands “I stumbled across a painting of you and your parents” you inform him, and he nods knowingly

“Hm, yes I remember having to sit through all of the paintings that I’m in” he remarks a hand on his chin.

“Your parents-“ you start, wondering how to say the words without seeming horny and jealous over them. Which only the latter you were. “They were beautiful” you tell him “I see where you got it from” you add in confession. Adrian chuckles

“You know if you wanted to call be beautiful you would only have to say” he jests, you lean and bump shoulders with him with a light blush.

“They looked safe to” you say ignoring the statement before “They look like everything I wanted my parents to be” you tell him with a sad chuckle. Adrian looks down to you and makes a sound of agreement

“They were definitely safe and home” he tells you “Although, family parties was something to encounter” he adds

“I can imagine” you nod “Your mother must have had her work cut out for her convincing them she wasn’t food” you add. You look up to Adrian “She must have been the strongest person you knew” you compliment. He nods

“Though you’d give her a run for her money” he tells you after agreeing. Before being able to ask how so Adrian continues “I mean look at you, you’ve been in this time period for just under a week and you’ve managed to appear in some broken mans home just after he swore hatred to humanity” you watch him speak “Having someone like you here after everything that happened is-“ he trails off thinking of the right word “it reminds me of how one bad egg doesn’t ruin the coop” you chuckle at his analogy.

“These past few days have been anything but easy” You tell him “I’m learning of so many things that only existed in fiction. In my right mind I should be terrified” you add with a small chuckle “But I’m not sure what it is that makes me feel like I belong” sure you do. You tell yourself. The feeling of belonging is sat right next to you. You push the though back. You literally have never had anyone to talk to like this. You internally sigh the thought relenting.

Adrian smiles. You hope for a moment that he doesn’t read your thoughts. “It feels like you belong here too” he tells you. If only you could get a peak into his brain. It’s probably telling him that he thought the same with the last intruders he encountered. You’re different. He tells the thoughts. You’re not here seeking knowledge. You promise under the jurisdiction of everything above that you’ll do everything in your power to not betray him in any way.

You feel Adrian lean onto your shoulder, consequently you lean your head on his. There’s a few moments of a comfortable silence.

“I wonder” you break the silence “What cool vampire abilities can you use?” you ask curiosity coming over you. Adrian thinks for a moment.

“I have hearing that rivals humans hearing 10 to 1. I can hear most thing that happen in the castle” he tells you. You think about that. Well shit that definitely means he’s heard any time you’ve had a nightmare, or when you’ve cried in your room. “My hearing pairs well with the rest of my senses, everything’s heightened.” he pauses “Apart from my sight” he adds after the thought passes his mind.

“Probably something to do with vampires being night creatures.” you say insightfully “Like a bat” you add. Adrian agrees.

“You’ve seen the speed too” he adds and you nod. The impossible speed when Adrian took down the night monsters suddenly makes sense. “That’s pretty much it” he adds. You can tell there are other things that Adrian doesn’t want to tell you yet. You don’t blame him, if you had cool supernatural abilities there would defiantly be things you’d hide. Especially if they aren’t written about in beginner books about the supernatural.

“What can your cool human abilities do?” Adrian asks with a small chuckle, you smile and laugh a little

“Well there’s the fact I can barely read, sometimes I go deaf in an ear” you tell him “oh there’s the this thing that my lungs do when they decide not to work” you add with a chuckle. Adrian nods insightfully as if he’s pretending to learn all these things for the first time.

“Is that all it does?” he asks you in jest, you shake your head

“Sometimes my brain does this funky self destructive thing” you respond with a laugh “My brain also does this thing where it likes to remember chorus’ of random songs and play them on repeat” you add in jest

“Your art seems to be your cool human ability” Adrian compliments, you shake your head

“Any Tom, Dick and Larry can pick up a pencil” you tell him, he shakes his head

“Sure they can. Doesn’t make what they create is good” he tells you. You let out another chuckle and agree with the compliment with a ‘i guess so’

A handful of minutes pass in more silence after the conversation concluded. Thankfully this silence is much more comfortable then before. You feel Adrian get more comfortable and you contented start playing with his hair. Damn is it soft. Must be the vampire genes. You plait it into small plaits around his hair, something to keep your hands busy.

You plait a handful of plaits in Adrians hair when suddenly a timer or some kind goes off. Adrian rises and goes to check on his bread. You notice said timer is a candlestick which had a nail stuck inside it, clever. You get up off the floor and investigate the bread. You notice there’s about a dozen bread rolls, all of which smell amazing and make your stomach grumble a little. Adrian chuckles at you.

“They’ve just come out the oven, theres no way you can eat them yet” he joke reprimands you, you feign a cry and you watch Adrian laugh a little at your theatrics. You sit on the counter beside the bread and watch Adrian turn off the oven. He looks up to you “Whatever are you doing on the countertop?” he asks with jest, you smile and give him a playful wink

“Just taking my place with the rest of the snacks” you joke trying to keep a straight face but buckle after a few seconds. You lean over yourself and giggle at your dumb joke. 

You miss Adrian smile genuinely at you.


	8. A friendship should be 50/50; you teach me magic and I eat the bread you make

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this is such a short chapter. But interesting stuff is coming soon :D

The two of you spend the most of the early morning in the kitchen. One the bread cools down you and Adrian decide on having a hearty breakfast, especially considering your day is going to be long. And also considering you decide to push magic practice forwards to before lunch since the both of you are already awake and have nothing planned this morning anyway.  
It’s about 7am by the time the two of you cook, eat and clean up breakfast. You both excuse yourselves to quickly freshen up before the day ahead. You change in your room and as you leave you pick up Adrians jacket which you had worn since just after entering the kitchen. 

Your curious mind takes a deep inhale of the garment. You can faintly smell your own scent which makes sense, but your nostrils are filled with Adrians own. It’s hard to describe how Adrian smells. He smells soft. If that makes sense. You can definitely detect the faint smell of vanilla on the clothes, perhaps that’s what he bathes in. Your mind flashes with a picture of Adrian bathing. You squeeze your eyes shut and get rid of the thought. What were you thinking?

You hear a knock on your door. Ah perhaps you had taken a little too long. You tell Adrian its okay to come in. You walk towards your mirror and make sure that you look okay and practical for the day ahead. The outfit you chose tells you to not singe it. Well, it doesn’t. But you look cute in this outfit so it would be nice to save it for the future. Adrian walks in and you watch him enter through the mirror. You wonder for a second if vampires can see through mirrors, but you push the thought back to ask later. Adrian asks if you’re ready to go and you nod. He leads you towards the ballroom you appeared in a few days ago. Along the way you pass Adrian his jacket and he thanks you.

You enter the ballroom and see its been removed of anything flammable. Good call. Adrian leads you to the centre of the room and begins explaining how to use your intention to you. You follow his instruction.

There.

You feel a shift in your body. As if something slumbering is rising. You try again and feel the same shift again. You put your arms down and breath. You then look up to Adrian with big eyes and exclaim “I felt it!” you jump knowing you could do this. Adrian smiles with a slight air of amusement at your excitement. “I’ve just got to kick it away” you tell Adrian before stretching your arms out again

“Careful, it might gut kick you” he jests, you stick your tongue out at him and regain your concentration. You command the sleeping magic within you to get up right now and it- it complies! You feel a bubble of magic across your body. For a brief moment you feel every part of your body. You clap your hands and look to Adrian he smiles at you “Well done, lets try actually using it now” he tells you, the compliment swells in your chest. Hell yeah!

Adrian explains the next concept, conjuring. You pay close attention and hold your hands together. You try for a good half hour before feeling the need to give up. Adrian stops you and gives you a demonstration. You try again and find yourself amounting to nothing. You huff and internally tell your magic to get off its ass and make something.

Somehow that works. 

You create a small ball of ice between your hands, you slowly make it bigger until the ice is about the size of a tennis ball. You look to Adrian with big eyes, he looks at you proudly. He congratulates you and tackle him into a hug, thanking him like half a dozen times.

“That was all you, all I did was show you the path” he tells you over lunch. You nod at his words

“Hey at least that Celtic blood my parents gave me was actually worth something” you chuckle at your words, remembering when you were a little younger you spent a summer with your grandparents tracing your lineage

“Oh you have Celtic blood?” Adrian asks, you nod as you take a bite of your food “makes sense with how easy it was to awaken your magic” he adds between mouthfuls of food. You remember a lady you worked with growing up being a Celtic witch. Born and bred, she’d tell you. She most definitely taught her kids the same practice she grew up with, it was cute. Maybe she held more secrets then she ever told you about. Like actual magic, not just herbology and superstitions. 

After lunch you practice some more and you’re able to create a large ball of ice, if you were to compare it to something it would have to be the size of the oven in the kitchen. You want to push yourself more but the exhausted feeling over comes you too much so you take to pushing the ice ball around the ballroom. Adrian tells you that you’re probably exhausted from using so much magic after just awakening it, he explains that using magic is just like anything you do with your body, you have to train it. The thought of training makes you wanna die. Adrian also makes a remark about how curious it is that you started with ice as most people start by conjuring fire. You wonder why that is, but you push the thought back when you don’t find an answer.

The two of you pack up and begin dinner. You’re so tired so Adrian relieves you of your cooking duty and you almost fall asleep at the table. As dinner is ready Adrian nudges you awake and he tells you that you can continue sleeping after food.

And thats what you did. After food Adrian leads you to your room, he helps you into bed. You don’t really care if you’re still in the clothes from the day. Adrian leaves you to sleep.


	9. You have strange friends. No I’m not included with the strange friends statement

The weeks slip by without anything too much happening. You go into town again to pick up the garments Adrian ordered and damn do they feel like your clothes. You continue practicing with the magic thing. You’ve been able to craft your ice trick into weapons like swords, you’ve also been able to create things like ice walls. Adrian brings up the idea of training in combat. You turn him down and tell him to ask again when you’ve got a better idea of how to use magic. Adrian doesn’t argue that much. Over the time you’ve been in the castle you start feeling more at home and that is reflected by the random things of yours that you’ve left around the castle. You ran out of 21st century tobacco in the second week so Adrian offered to get you some time typical tobacco. You don’t say no.

About once a week you’ll have a dumb nightmare and when you go and investigate the kitchen Adrian is already there. You’re not sure if you get nightmares at the same time or if Adrian hears you stumble out of bed. There’s been a couple of times where you find Adrian sat on the kitchen floor in his own thoughts. You seem to find him before you go to bed, so you decide to go out your way to be with him until you fall asleep. He seems to like napping in your presence and you don’t complain, you can get on with the painting which you finally asked for a canvas and paints for. 

You realise that its only a couple weeks before christmas and true on your own internal promise the painting would be done before the said date. It’s covered with a sheet of fabric in your room. You’ve forbidden Adrian from looking, he complies with a bit of argument. You chuckle at the thought. Over the few weeks you can’t help but be horrifically aware of the feeling you get when Adrian touches your arm, or when you hug him, or when your heart speeds up when you see him enter the room. You feel like a dumb teenager with a crush. Your heart seems to internalise and consume every compliment and positively worded sentence, and sometimes your heart will replay the things he’s said to you. You’re selfish when you indulge yourself in his words and touches, he’s kind of like a drug at this point. You crave to be around him so much. You want to- you stop your thoughts. There’s so much stuff you’ve got to work through before even thinking about getting with him, so why does your mind linger on it so?

There’s a few things you’ve noticed about Adrian through the weeks, his smile seems to reach his eyes more. His small chuckles and laughs seem more genuine. You’re so happy for him. You don’t ignore the fact that you’ve seemingly lightened up more, you’re more playful and snarky. You like to make jokes to Adrian who more often than not tries to hold his laughter. You’re happy. If you could stay in this place and mood forever you would within a heartbeat. Everything seems to be getting better.

You think to the corpses at the door, they disappeared one night. Adrian tells you that it was hungry night creatures. But you feel deep down that he moved them. You haven’t told him that you’ve noticed the pile of disrupted soil by the backside of the castle, you wont mention it either. It’s something that Adrian should mention himself.

You hear a distinct knocking at your door jolting you out your thoughts. You give the signal to come in and Adrian sits himself beside you. He looks dressed up and ready for the day. And is his hair- your heart quite literally skips a beat- his hair is pulled up into a ponytail. Your brain goes blank for a moment. Adrian calls your name and you jump again.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, you wonder if you could reply with, uh you, look at you parading about looking like a whole meal. You don’t for the record, you shake your head instead and Adrian drops it.

“Busy day ahead?” you ask him, Adrian nods

“I’m going to pop into town today” he tells you “I’ll be gone for a few hours but I’ll be back before dusk” he adds, you look to him as to ask why you’re not coming “It’s just fo a quick trip, I’ll be back before you know it” he smiles nudging your shoulder “Try not to destroy the place while I’m on my errands”

“No promises” you wink at him. He gets up off your bed and offers a hand to help you off “I’ll see you off” you tell him before walking with him to the stables.

You watch him get on his horse and go off. You give him a wave as he leaves. Damn, this is the first time since being here that you’ve been left alone since getting here. You walk out the castle and close the stable doors. You take note that the thin layer of snow makes your feet cold, even through your boots. You decide to start your day by taking a track through the ruins of the... what did Adrian call it? Oh yeah. The Belmont estate. The ruins add a melancholy to the area, but with the thin layer of snow they look beautiful to say the least. Your mind wonders to the sketchbook in one of the lounges of the castle, but you decide against it knowing that once your back inside you wont want to leave again. 

You’re careful to not slip on any debris as you explore. You seem to stumble upon the ruin of what you can only deduce can be a child’s bedroom, the broken bed which is much to small to be an adult one makes your heart reach out to the hopefully alive child Belmont. You stare at the bed for a little while wondering how this child turned out, especially with all the knowledge in the hold. Probably a hunter you conclude.

“You wont find anything here thief” you hear a voice and you freeze and turn to the source of the sound. A large man and a smaller woman stands no more than 10feet before you. You curse to yourself, why did strange people have to appear the one day Adrian is out and not an hour after his departure.

“It seems to me that your the thief here” you bite back, hands on your hips, “Look at you both. A bag each that needs filling? Sounds like you’re projecting” you tell the tall, intimidating man. There’s no way your ice tricks could manage in a fight

“We’re not thieves” the woman in blue tells you stepping forwards, you step back. Your eyes flickering between the two “We’re just here to visit a friend” she tells you taking another step. Man maybe you should have taken up the offer on starting combat practice.

“Do you know Alucard, or did you already kill him?” the man asks. The woman slaps his chest and gives him a pointed look. Your brain flicks through all the things you’ve learnt and a lightbulb suddenly goes off

“You mean Adrian?” you ask and shake your head “He’s too pretty to kill” you jest and the woman smiles widely 

“Where is he?” she asks, you furrow your brows

“I don’t trust you nearly enough to be answering such questions” you tell the woman sternly. Your mind dings at the poppets in the kitchen and you pull the thought forwards that this could be those people, but that could be coincidental. The man huffs and mentions something about doing this the hard way. In a moment you hold your hands together. Depending if your fight or flight kicks in depends on what you summon.

“Trevor, please you’re scaring them” the woman tells him sternly. The Trevor man huffs and looks to the woman pointedly “Look, we mean no harm we just want to see our friend” she tells you with soft eyes “I’m Sypha Belnades and the oaf is Trevor Belmont” she tells you hoping you’ll feel more safe knowing their names. You tell Sypha your name skeptically. Though another lightbulb flicks on in your mind.

“Belmont?” you ask, Trevor nods “So this is your estate” you state more then questions, but he nods nonetheless

“I left it all to the dumb half vampire” he tells you, and you nod feeling a little at ease. You sigh, theres no way you would let yourself freeze to death talking to the intruders. Adrian can confirm their identity’s once he’s back.

“Come on then” you tell the two and start leading the two to the castle. Sypha catches you up and walks beside you 

“You’re a spellcaster?” she asks, you don’t answer apart from a ‘you sure?’ look. She nods “You were getting ready to cast, I could tell from your stance” she informs you. You sigh and nod, Sypha smiles as if she won a bet or something. “Where are you from?” she asks trying to strike a conversation. You tell her and watch her surprise after she realises “You’re so far form home” she tells you, you nod

“Tell me about it” you sigh as you enter through the main entrance. A memory of the corpses threatens itself to surface, but you don’t let it. You lead the two to the kitchen and they both sit down. You resist the urge to tell Trevor that, that seat is in fact Adrian’s but you suppress the urge with a shake of your head. “Teas?” you as them, Sypha nods and Trevor mumbles something about ale. You hear Sypha kick Trevor while you start getting the kettle onto the hob. You turn to face the two.

“So you guys must be the people who helped take down Dracula?” you ask, Trevor nods 

“Killed the bloodsucking bastard, thats what we did” Trevor tells you with an air of accomplishment. You flinch at his words, sure you had presumed they killed Dracula but hearing the words made you process things a little differently. Adrian never really mentions thing from his year long rampage only the things from his childhood and early adulthood. You cant really muster words to say about it. You can only imagine how Adrian feels about the situation. “Where’s Alucard anyway?” Trevor asks

“Off wanking in his room” you say without thinking, you laugh a little “Sorry that was like a reflex” you scratch your neck, but you notice Trevor suppress a laugh. “He’s popped into town” you tell them carefully with a chuckle “You missed him by about an hour” you add turning to the whistling kettle.

“I told you we should have come last night” Sypha tells Trevor. You’re glad they didn’t. Your mind recalls the fun you had making a dumb cake after practice. You notice some batter on the floor as you recall the memory. You pour out two cups of tea and give one to Sypha.

“I would offer some coffee but colonisers haven’t found it yet” you remark taking a sip of tea. Maybe you could be cryptic and mysterious before Adrian tells them of your origin. The two raise their brows before moving on.

“How long have you been here for?” Sypha asks, you pretend to count the weeks. Of course you know how long you’ve been what kind of question-

“Just under five weeks” you tell the ginger, she nods and looks to Trevor as if trying to count how long ago that was in their adventure.

The hours go by and so does the stories of the twos adventures over the past two, almost three, months. You share some spats of information about your time with Adrian and some cryptic information about your original time period. You can tell it confuses them and that amuses you, just a little. Lunch rolls by and you all have a healthy helping of sandwiches and pastries each. You decide to move to the lounge after lunch, mostly because your back started to hurt. But sure you could convince yourself that you’re a great househost.

Sypha flexes her magic by starting the fire and after that the small conversation continues until Adrian gets back. He traces your scent and two very familiar ones across the castle. He hopes that you gave them the wrong idea and now you’re tied up somewhere. The explaining for that would be hard. After pinpointing your location in the lounge he drops off the things he bought today and makes his way up.

You’re the first to notice the door open, Trevor seems to be too deep in reliving an adventure as he tells it to you. “Adrian!” you exclaim with a smile. You watch his gaze fall to you and then to his friends. His lack of an offensive stand gives you the idea that these people do in fact know the pretty half vampire.

“Good Evening” he says greeting the room, his eyes fall to you with a warmth that makes your heart skip a beat. The idiot has to know what he’s doing to you. You conclude. The pair in front of you turn towards Adrian with a smile

“Alucard” Sypha greets warmly, she stands up and traps the blond in a tight hug. You can see how much he desperately wants to flinch away, but he relents and returns the hug. Trevor flips Adrian off with a smile.

“Fuck you Belmont” Adrian tells him a smile gracing his face. You watch the ordeal with a smile. You can tell Adrian holds them close to him. In the moment you miss your own friends. You wonder what they’d be doing about this time of year without you. Probably keeping true to tradition and getting high somewhere. “I see you’ve met my friends” Adrian speaks as he sits beside you. You feel his shoulder brush against yours. Jeez you’re gonna get a heart attack if your heart keeps skipping beats. Trevor and Sypha watch the encounter and conversation pretty much resume, just now with the inclusion of Adrian. 

Another hour passes and conversation is interrupted by a large growl of your stomach. You hide your face, flustered. Adrian laughs a little at you. You lightly bash shoulders with him.

“Good thing I picked up something for dinner” Adrian tells you, “Will you be eating with us?” he asks the other two. They both nod and Adrian smiles. Adrian stands up, and so does everyone- well beside Trevor. Adrian is met with two ‘we’ll help’s and Sypha kicks Trevors shin who groans and stands up too.

The four of you walk towards the kitchen. You find yourself walking with Sypha who tells you about her speaker heritage. You notice Trevor speaking Adrians ear off, well it seems more like a testosterone match. You avert your concentration from them not wanting to hear about either of their sex lives much. Instead you opt to asking Sypha questions about her speaker lineage, she’s more then thrilled to tell you about her family. As you all enter the kitchen she raises the idea in helping you advance your magic after you let slip about how you don’t really know what you’re doing. You’re tempted to decline and continue working with Adrian but Sypha assures you that she probably knows more magic then Adrian apart from transfiguration so you agree. 

You stop mid chopping a carrot after thinking back on the conversation. You turn to Sypha who’s mid peeling a potato. You call her name and she looks towards you “You mentioned that you knew less about transfiguration than Adrian” you remark. Sypha nods and looks over to Adrian who’s engrossed in a conversation with Trevor who are both seasoning steaks. 

“He hasn’t told you?” she asks, and you shake your head. Sypha smiles and taps her nose “Maybe you should ask him” she tells you and you huff and jokingly call her a name. She laughs at you and you both continue your jobs.

Before long the food is ready and you’re all digging into your steaks. You remark about how unsurprising each of their steak preferences are. Adrian extends the same remark to you to which you ask ‘what’s that supposed to mean’, he gives you a joking wink and you stick your tongue out at him.

Dinner passes nicely, but you’re not able to ask your transfiguration question through the general conversation. At some point you’re drifting in the lounge, you subconsciously notice Adrian lead Trevor and Sypha to a room to sleep in. Adrian returns not ten minutes later alone. You register that he sits beside you. Your brain can’t keep up with what he’s saying so what if you.

Yeah you fall asleep on Adrians shoulder in the lounge. But you don’t complain because he’s so warm and cozy.


	10. So why does my heart do the thump thump thing around you?

You sleep soundly through the night. Probably the most comfortable you’ve felt in years. You slowly awake expecting to see your closet when you open your eyes, instead you see the fire with nothing but embers as if its been kept going until a few hours ago. You feel a shift from above you and a yawn. Is that, Adrian? You wonder to yourself. Your brain works slow but eventually registers that your head is resting on Adrians lap and you’re curled up beside him. You feel a hand pat your side and you move.

“Morning” he greets looking amused at your tired face as if his doesn’t look just as tired

“Time?” you ask groggily and you begin to stretch

“Just after seven” he tells you and you nod. Ah yes far too early to function. “The other two should be up soon” he tells you after a moment. You nod but don’t move. Neither does Adrian.

“You’re comfy” you tell him with a small smile. His amused grin graces his features again and your heart speeds up. Ugh who gives him the right to look ethereal even as he’s woken up “Did you sleep?” you ask him in seriousness. He nods his grin turning into a soft smile

“The best I have in a while” he tells you, you hum in agreement. Maybe you could yakno sleep in the same place more often. You internally offer. Adrian puts a hand on your thigh “How about we make some breakfast?” he asks, you nod ignoring the hammering of your heart at the touch. You mentally slap your brain, behave yourself you tell it.

It takes a few more moments for you to get up off the seat because you’re far too comfy but alas you’ve got to meet the day. You get up then proceed to help Adrian up like he did the morning before.

The two of you walk downstairs in a comfortable silence. You’re glad the warmth of the lounge doesn’t really go away as you walk. You push the thought away that concludes that Adrian is the warmth. The two of you enter the kitchen and Adrian immediately gets a frying pan out and starts frying some eggs. The unspoken agreement of fried egg sarnies befalls the room. So you pull out the bread and start buttering it.

As the first sandwich is done you see Trevor stumble into the room looking well rested, but tired, you offer him the completed sandwich which he takes with gratitude. Not long after Sypha emerges and as the eggs are finished you give Sypha her food. You and Adrian silently banter with each other as you wait for yours and his eggs to cook. You refuse to sit after your eggs are done and opt to pestering Adrian as he cooks his. Adrian refuses to pay attention to you so you go out your way to pester him more. You can tell Sypha and Trevor are watching but you don’t care. You’ll get the pretty blond to crack. And he does. He doesn’t do it for long but he does laugh at you.

Fucking hell that laugh is the stuff of angels. If they existed ya know. You feel yourself swoon more. To cover up the swoon you place you hand on your heart

“Careful Adrian I think that laugh almost gave me a heart attack” he laughs a little more at you and he hits you with his hip you laugh and you hip hit him back. He feigns hurt before plating up his food and escaping to the table with both your plates. That bastard. You notice Trevor and Sypha watch in amusement, Sypha mentions something about why they don’t do that. You both circle the table a few times when you get the idea. You stop, and so does Adrian. He watches you erect two ice walls either side of him and you lunge for him. Adrian dives under the table. You pout at him 

“Cheater” you tell him, Trevor makes a sound of agreement as Adrian shakes his head

“You’re just jealous that I’m quicker than you” he tells you matter of factly. You stare him down and without a word lunge across the table again. You take him by surprise and get your sandwich and hold it in the air in victory.

“Adrian nill, me. Huh what is it now like five?” you ask recounting all the dumb things you’ve both done. Adrian takes a bite of his bread after congratulating you on your victory

“He went easy on you, you know” Trevor tells you as he and Sypha washes up. Adrian left to get changed. You nod 

“Oh yeah I totally know” you tell him pushing the walls of ice into the pantry. Free ice anyone? You ask internally “But the joke is I’m going easy on him” you tell him insightfully. Trevor laughs with a ‘sure’ “I’m gonna get changed. Don’t cause too much trouble” you tell them 

“I should be telling you the same thing” Sypha tells you as you leave. You playfully flip her off. 

It doesn’t take you long to change into something fresh. You take a mental note to take a bath later as you leave your room. You remember the first bath you took here, damn it was heavenly. You could conclude that having a bath in a warm room is far superior to having a shower in a cold flat. You shiver remembering all the times you had to shower in that cold, damp room. You shake your head. 

On your way back to the kitchen you pick up your sketchbook from the lounge. You smile at the couch the thought of being sound asleep with Adrian pops into your brain. You wonder what his sleeping face looks up close and personal. You reprimand your thoughts for making you think about that. You shake your head and go back into the kitchen.

You notice Trevor and Sypha conversing as you enter, you put your sketchbook down on the side and start boiling the kettle. The two don’t stop talking, they nod when you walk in but thats as far as i goes for acknowledgement. You reach into a cupboard and produce something equivalent to a thermos mug. All it really is, is a large mug with a lid. You notice Sypha watch you as she converses, you don’t mind it too much.

“Adrian mentioned that you’re a traveller from a time far away” Trevor says getting your attention. You nod.

“About 400 years” you respond with a smile. You wonder if Adrian told them of your time travelling antics while you were dozing off last night.

“What’s it like?” Sypha asks, you shrug

“Boring” you offer “Constantly weighed down by the bills and debt” you add with a chuckle “There’s good music though, not as much input from the church” you add pouring your tea

“What’s magic like that far into the future?” the ginger asks, you shake your head

“The magic of alcohol and drugs is rampant” you joke with a chuckle “In seriousness, anything supernatural is fiction and magic is nonexistent, well I never saw it” you tell her taking a sip of your hot tea. Sypha nods.

“I’m sure whatever city you have here trumps in comparison to the cities in the future” you add thinking about the large structures that could make even the castle look small. “It’s lonely though” for places so populated you can feel the most alone. You confess. Sypha looks at you sympathetically 

“You’ve got no worry about being lonely. With Alucard and all that” she comforts from across the room, you smile. You agree with her statement though. Sure theres been times you’ve felt so lonely in the castle, but Adrians presence is everywhere.

“There’s things I have to learn about before I’m able to feel completely warm” you tell her, Sypha nods as if she understands where your coming from. You expect a large amount of people in Wallachia have seen things that keep them cold for whatever reason. Your mind reaches to the corpses formerly outside the front door. You feel like all the traumas in this castle are barely holding onto by a plaster. You wonder when you’d stand, figuratively, naked before Adrian all your dumb traumas. You wonder if the reverse would happen. You shake the thought off and excuse yourself.

You decide to take your sketchbook and tea into the hold. You’re sure its going to be cold down there but you don’t really mind, the warm cloak that you wear is likely to keep you warm enough. Once in the hold you find a nice vantage point and begin sketching the area without much thought. Your brain seems to be thinking nothing. It’s a great time to just relax and draw. Whenever your mind drifts to Adrian you force it back to the thoughtless track of just creating.

Your brain teases you, it brings forwards memories of this morning and literally any touch from Adrian “Brain, you and I are gonna have a problem soon” you tell yourself, your brain, being a dumb piece of matter, continues to tease you. The morning passes with you finding different places to sketch and internally wrestling with your brain. 

A new distraction cant come fast enough. You notice Trevor walk towards and you give him and pat the floor beside you “What brings you into the hold?” you ask the man as he sits beside you. He shrugs thinking about what to tell you 

“I never came down here as a kid, making up for lost time ‘spose” you nod understanding.

“It’s a beautiful hold” you compliment “I wish my brain could comprehend even a quarter of what’s here” you add with a light chuckle. Trevor nods in agreement. He notices the sketchbook on your lap and asks to see it, you happily oblige and pass him the book. He flicks through the pages, pausing on the sketches of his ruined home for long enough for you to take note, but he doesn’t mention it and continues to look through the pages. He eventually stumbles into your pages of Adrian study, he compliments your work. You smile at him. ”Don’t say anything about it, especially in the castle. But I’ve got a painting of him done in my room” you tell him with a smile. Trevor smiles to you 

“You like him?” he asks bluntly but worded in such a way that if a 12 year old asked you it wouldn’t seem out the ordinary. You shrug

“It’s complicated. I’ve got to get over stuff first” you tell him with a smile. Trevor nods 

“But if you take too long to wait he might be gone” he tells you half pointedly. You sigh but agree nonetheless 

“I’ve been here just over a month, theres rushing into things and theres taking it at the right pace” you pause “I don’t know why I’m looking at things like I know what he’s thinking” you chuckle a little looking down at your hands. Trevor buts you with his shoulder and laughs like you told the best joke

“Don’t be oblivious” he tells you, you cock an eyebrow “Just watch how he treats you compared to me ‘n Sypha” he adds butting you with his shoulder. You shake your head and look to Trevor

“Careful Trevor, you’ll start giving me hope” you tell him, and he laughs at you more

“You act as though you don’t already have it” he tells you with yet another shoulder but, you shake your head but you can’t help but agree. Maybe you do have that slither of hope that you’re clinging too, that slither that doesn’t make you hate this time period. “And there we go you just saw it” you hear Trevor tell you from beyond your thoughts. The bastards right, but you’re not sure how much you like him being right.

“Adrian mentioned he saw you come down here” you hear Sypha from behind you, she walks beside Trevor, “You were supposed to let them know its time for lunch” she tells Trevor with a pointed expression, you smile at the interaction

“Sorry Sypha, I just needed some advice so I kept him from delivering his news” you tell her hoping to get the Belmont hulk out of trouble. You feel Trevor look at you and mentally thank you for getting him out of Syphas wrath. The ginger smiles and accepts the apology. She waits for the both of you to stand and leads the way out the hold.

As you renter the castle you feel a thousand thoughts push on your temples. Maybe what Trevor said was true. Did he really treat you differently to them? And is it because of the difference in circumstances upon first meeting? Not because he ‘likes’ you as Trevor said? You sigh to yourself as you walk towards the kitchen. Why do you feel like a teenager again? Are you going to text Adrian ‘You into me?’ texts at 4am? Are you going to drunkenly make out with him? You ask yourself as you enter the kitchen. Why have all these feelings got to bubble up inside you like this?

You see Adrian setting down three bowls of stew as you walk in. “Aww the pretty housewife made us food” you jest as you sit down, Adrian throws you an amused glare which makes you laugh

“Is that all I am to you?” he asks feigning hurt, you shake you’re head 

“You’ve got a good ass too” you tel him your face holding seriousness for a moment before breaking the look with a laugh. You can tell Trevor is laughing beside you too. Said male gives you a pointed look as to say ‘see’ but you throw him a scowl which only seems to make Trevor grin more. You go to kick him but decide against it and eat your food. “Anyway, what’s everyone been up to so far today?” you ask the table

Trevor is the first to speak “I wondered the ruins for a little while, I found an old book in my old bedroom. It was weathered but I read what I could of it” he tells you, you nod

“Alucard and I have been sorting out Draculas throne room from all the debris” Sypha tells you, the blond nods in agreement. Sypha goes to add something but Adrian shoots her a glare and she doesn’t. You wonder what happened between them. “How about you?” Sypha asks, you smile

“Well all the books in the hold are more then wasted on me, but its architecture is not” you reply “I’ve been drawing different parts of the hold all morning” you add with a little pride in your chest. Your art escapade distracted you from your thoughts for like 5 minutes, and 5 minutes is better than none.

“They’re quite the artist” Adrian tells the table. You furrow your brows at Adrian in an attempt to disagree with the compliment 

“He’s not lying, their art is really good” he looks to Sypha, but you know the words are pointed at you. You look down to your stew in defeat.

“No way!” Sypha exclaims “Will you show me?” she asks looking to you with big eyes. You nod and she claps her hands together.

Lunch passes with little conversation and after lunch you steel yourself away to one of the castles library’s, if there isn’t anything interesting to draw you could always avert your attention to outside or Sypha who decides to join you. You give the ginger your sketchbook before you get settled down and she flicks through the pages and compliments your work. You smile and thank her. You and Sypha sit in mostly silence bar the scratching of pencil on paper as you draw the speaker.

“What relationship do you and Alucard have?” she asks after prolonged silence, you sigh half hoping to avoid the conversation. Is Sypha and Trevor playing a game of matchmaker? This is going to get tiring real quick if that’s the case. You think of a way to answer the question.

“He kinda got dumped with me, so we’ve made a friendship from the situation” you tell her, internally cursing because she moved her head, her sketch was no longer lined up.

“He could have thrown you to the road” she tells you and you nod with a small smile, sure that idea hadn’t escaped you 

“He’s got more humanity then that” you tell Sypha pointedly, she nods almost shocked by how defensive your statement was, “But he certainly tested me” you comment thinking of all the subtle times he gave you an opportunity to run. Sypha nods taking in the information.

“How do you feel about him?” She asks, you furrow your brows thinking about how much truth you could tell her without horrifically uncovering your dumb crush. Did you just admit you have a crush on Adrian? What conclusions is your brain coming to? ‘The correct one’ you hear brain Trevor tell you.

“He’s safe, and warm” you begin “He’s more human then anyone back home, if you didn’t know you would call them the vampires” you tell her carefully hoping you didn’t expose too much. She nods as if comparing notes 

“Do you want to go back home?” she asks carefully. A breath catches in your throat. Not now you don’t, not while Adrian needs someone, but maybe one day you miss the abundance of people you interacted with, but you can see yourself hanging up your jacket more so here then back home. You shrug

“I- I don’t know” you tell her truthfully, your brows furrowing as you decide what you’d want to do. As your brain wracks itself for arguments for each point you seem to come out with more of a bias for staying. Sypha watches you process the information, but you don’t give her another answer. She doesn’t push further and returns to her position looking out the window. The room falls into silence once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to be on a roll with these chapters and I literally wont be anytime soon.
> 
> I hope you’re enjoying the dumb story crafted by moi :)
> 
> I got ideas for days :D


	11. Please don’t ruin my chances and make things awkward around the castle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels like a filler chapter? I didn’t intend it to be ;-;
> 
> I guess everything’s feeling a little domestic i guess

You and Sypha sit alone and silent in the library for a few hours, Sypha at some point picked up a book. You look over to her after an intense thought session. If Sypha and Trevor plan to play matchmaker wouldn’t it make sense to nip the bud while its still new? Because if you leave it too long they could push you both into something before you’re both ready. You don’t see yourself confessing your attraction to Adrian anytime soon, so why should they make you?

“Sypha” your grab the gingers attention, she looks up from her book and looks to you “Can you not meddle with mine and Adrians relationship, please?” you ask her sincerely, her eyes soften and she nods.

“Of course” she says softly, she’s slightly taken aback by your correct assumption of your prying “Can I ask why?” she asks and you nod slowly.

“Look,” you start “I’m not emotionally ready for anything more than this” you confess looking her in her eyes “There are hurdles I need to jump over to clear the path” you add looking down. Sypha smiles a little 

“Alucard said something similar earlier” she tells you. You wonder why she ignored Adrians request when it came to asking you these questions. You wonder if she wanted to know what you’d both say. Well.. she has her answer. You wonder if its something she expected to hear from the both of you. Sypha could have probably guessed what Adrian would say but she felt the need to scope you out too. It makes you feel like a specimen to be studied. It makes you uncomfortable. Sure, you’re not able to stop them watching your relationship with Adrian, but if Sypha is true to her word there will be no scheming.

Sypha studies you a second later and returns to her book. You decide to excuse yourself and walk towards your room. As you approach your room you notice a door thats open that normally isn’t. It leads to unexplored territory. You place your sketchbook down and approach it. You wonder if it’s a test set out by Adrian to see how far you’d go and explore. You try and find an answer by just looking down the enticing corridor. No. You tell yourself. If Adrian wanted you to explore more of the castle he would explicitly say so. You won’t betray his trust. So, you close the door and nothing more then a nag at the back of your brain reminds you of the door. You pick up your sketchbook and enter your room.

Sypha had exhausted your brain with her questions, a little nap to rest your brain and quell the curious pull to the corridor door. Boots and all you curl under your duvet. And you fall asleep rather quickly. You don’t really dream as you nap because of how exhausted your brain is. You’re probably napping for about an hour or two when you feel a gentle shaking. Your stir a little and look up to see Adrian shaking you.

“Good nap?” Adrian asks you, you nod and make a hum of agreement, the blond chuckles at you “Sypha made dinner for us all” he tells you, you nod and sit yourself up and stretch. A rumble of your stomach interrupts whatever train of thought you have and you laugh a little at the rumble.

“Guess I’m hungry” you tell Adrian who nods with a small laugh. The blond stands and then offers a hand to which you take and he helps you up. You and Adrian walk down to the kitchen and see Trevor laying up the table and Sypha serving up bowls of food. Is that trout? Your stomach rumbles again at the thought of a tasty fish. Adrian notices the second rumble and chuckles at you. You sit down in your seat and almost fall asleep right there again.

“Tired?” Trevor asks, you nod as you yawn. Trevor smiles at you with an amused glance, you shake your head at him. You notice Adrian placing full plates around the table. You smile down at the food and take a smell. The scent of the food fills your nostrils and you hum in content. You wait for everyone to sit down and you begin eating, focusing on the food. You hear the distinct sound of chatter across the table. Sypha calls your name a couple of times and you look up.

“Sorry” you apologise “I’m away with the fairies” you jest a little, Sypha smiles to you.

“It’s okay” she consoles “We were just wondering how you celebrate the holidays” she asks and you nod taking in the information.

“I don’t really celebrate Christmas for the whole Jesus thing” you answer “We tend to get together around mid December and exchange gifts” you add with a smile, Sypha nods with a smile.

“Well that solves it” Sypha announces to the table, you’re a little confused from the fact that you were completely clocked out of the conversation “We’ll do something after the solstice!” she announces, the table agrees with Sypha and she looks happy and like whatever plan she has is given the go ahead. After the conversation of the holidays dwell the table falls back into silence.

“Did you do much more in the throne room?” you ask looking at Adrian and breaking the silence, the blond looks up and nods.

“Trevor and I cleaned some more of the throne room and Sypha joined us a little later and we got a good lot done” he tells you gesturing to his friends as he mentions them “You should come to see it” he tells you with a smile. You nod.

“For sure I’ll come pop over and see it” you smile to him with a nod. After a few minutes of silence you decide to break it again “Did your father use it often?” you ask between mouthfuls. Adrian shakes his head.

“He never used it when I was younger but I assume he used it while he was assembling his army” he tells you, you nod taking in the information. You wonder how many unused rooms litter the castle because of the sheer size of the building. “Oh” Adrian makes a sound as if he remembered something “I unlocked some more of the castle if you wanted to explore” he tells you and you nod remembering the now open corridor. So the whole open door thing wasn’t a test. Nice. 

The rest of dinner goes by without much more interesting conversation, the table speaks about the throne room and, in truth, you were tasting to doze off again. Maybe you were more tired then you gave yourself credit for. After dinner you take up the offer to see the throne room, in your time here you hadn’t been in the room so upon seeing it you gape in awe. It’s a large beautiful room with what you can assume to be the crest of Dracula dons the walls. You cant help to stare at it with an open mouth. 

“It looks great” you compliment, you notice some rubble around the room, but that doesn’t change the fact on how luxurious the room looks “I feel like medieval royalty” you add spinning around the room with a smile. Adrian watches you with content, you smile at him. He thanks you with a small air of amusement. Your mind wonders to the scene in Beauty and the Beast where Belle and the Beast dance. Your mind wonders to he ballroom you landed in. That would be a better scene to intact such a moment.

There isn’t much to the room but you do your best to explore the room, but because of how the use of the room there isn’t much to explore in the room. So after helping the other three for an hour or so you excuse yourself. You go to the bathroom and draw yourself a bath. This isn’t your first bath since being here but with so much on your mind you feel like if art cant distract you, maybe a bath can.

After finally the bath filled you lower yourself into the bath and sigh as you feel your body relax in the water. Your mind thinks about the day. It’s felt like the longest day you’ve experienced in a while. Maybe because of Syphas digging. You offer yourself. Maybe because she’s made you think things more then you’ve had to. You shake your head to clear your head and you sink deeper into the bath.

You almost fall asleep bathing but are woken up by nearly inhaling half the bath. You decide its high time to get out the now mostly cold bath. You reach for your towel and dry yourself off. You sigh realising you hadn’t bought any clothes with you. You weigh it up in your head. Your bedroom is three doors down so what’s the change that you’d be seen? You decide to take the risk. You leave your clothes on the floor, you can move them in the morning. You open the bathroom door after emptying the bath and walk towards your room.

You hear your name being called. Fuck.

You turn around to see Adrian coming around the corner. You freeze and as soon as he notices you, he freezes too. He apologises and turns his back towards you, you quietly thank him. As you see him turn you could swear you can see a blush on his face. Cute.

“Sypha, Trevor and I were planning on having some hot drinks in the kitchen if you wanted to join” he tells you. You nod, but you remember he cant hear your nod

“Course, I’ll join you in a bit” you tell him and he nods. He then walks away back to the kitchen. As he starts walking back you turn and walk to your bedroom. You quickly change. You feel a little stupid being caught in nothing but your dumb towel. You curse at yourself in the mirror for being caught. 

After changing into a light dress you leave your bedroom. You don’t really want to wear anything too heavy, especially considering that its the evening and you’d be changing into pajamas in a small few hours. You leave your bedroom and sit in the kitchen, as you sit you enter the jovial, light hearted conversation about different adventures and experiences. You tell a story from parties you’d go to and in return Trevor would mention something about his own drunken endeavours. A few hours pass in the jovial atmosphere. Neither you nor Adrian mention the little scene outside the bathroom which you thank everyone above for. The four of you eventually head off to bed earlier then normal. No matter the time, you fall asleep nice and easily.


	12. So you see my demons. I’m not as alluring now that you know how fucked up I am, huh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter talks about grooming, pedophillia and insinuates rape, please read with caution. If you’re triggered by such topic please don’t force yourself to read this chapter. 
> 
> Feel free to skip this chapter. 
> 
> Chapter 13 will be out soon
> 
> The TLDR of this chapter is it’s three weeks later, you’ve made gifts for Sypha and Trevor. The scene moves to the present where you’ve finished crying outside in the snow. Adrian asks if he could know what plagues you at night and you spill his guts to him. He’s the only person to know all this time. You come out with a weight off your chest because you’ve finally spoken to someone about it. You’re glad for having Adrian close by.

December rolls past quicker then you could have ever imagined it to. With the addition of Trevor and Sypha in the castle you decided to make something to gift them when it gets to that time. They’re small sketches of themselves that they could keep up on their person. You didn’t really want to make them big pieces because you want Adrians one to be special, and besides with talk of them leaving again after the new years they wouldn’t have a place to put such portraits. Over the two weeks different parts of the castle is cleaned up more thanks to the twos help. Access to the complete castle seems to have been given to you. With knowledge of what parts of the castle you already know makes it a little harder to get lost. Although, Adrian has found you exasperated and lost on a couple of occasions.

You also took Sypha up on the offer of advancing your magic. You’re still not able to conjure anything but ice, but Sypha works around that problem by advancing your knowledge and practice in ice tricks. You’ve been able to have more intricate designs in things like ice swords and spears, which seems a little counter productive in a fight, but its a neat trick to know nonetheless. Sypha also took it upon herself, with a little protest from you, how to combat with just your ice magic. Sparring against another magic user, especially one so advanced is so surreal considering not two months ago you wouldn’t be able to comprehend successfully living in a time period so far away let alone magic, something only ever spoken about in fiction.

Over the two weeks you’ve been plotting and unplotting to catch Adrian under mistletoe or something. It’s a selfish plot that only really feeds your own desires, so no matter what your brain says about it you’ve completely written it off. Your brain likes to keep bringing up potential situations where you can kiss though. You would disown your brain if you could.

You’re currently sat outside with your large winter coat over you. Surely it’s an odd way to start your morning, but when you woke up at 4am because of a nightmare the snow looked to enticing not to. Also, you keep worrying about Adrian hearing you cry so over the past month you’ve secretly come out to cry when you don’t want to be bothered. Works like a charm. You lie on your back in the snow after finishing a cigarette. The medieval tobacco is definitely something else, somehow it feels healthier to 21st century tobacco, which is a weird thought. Finding papers for the tobacco was the hard part and you take smoking leaves literally. You laugh at your small weed joke you made to yourself.

You’re probably lead down for another thirty or so minutes, you still feel a little shitty from your nightmare but the cold snow soaking your back grounds you more than you’d like to admit. You wonder how long you’ve actually been outside for it’s probably been a few hours-

“Trevor said I’d find you here” you hear Adrian from behind you, he walks towards you looking over you to see your face, you smile at him “How much sleep have you had?” he asks upon noticing the bags under your eyes, you shrug. He sighs at the lack of cooperation you’re giving him. You don’t really want him knowing about your early morning cryings so keeping quiet is the best bet. Adrian sits down beside you. The blond doesn’t mention the fact he heard you getting up and leaving the castle in the early hours. He also doesn’t mention the fear of thinking you had run off. The fear came from such a place of insecurity. He wants to constantly hold you close and never watch you leave.

Adrian looks to your face once more “You’ve been crying” he observes with a sympathetic voice. You nod.

“You read me too easily” you tell Adrian with seriousness. He drops his head and nods. You wish to be better reading Adrian and well people in general. Being tone deaf to certain situations is your speciality that your working so hard on. Just like your barrage of other problems.

Adrian looks to you his head once again above yours to see your face, “Tell me what keeps you from sleeping” he asks. If you are to say no he’s ready to drop it, he just hopes that you’ll get whatever it is off your chest. You close your eyes and sigh, Adrian admits defeat.

“There was this guy” you begin, Adrian looks back to you listening as intently as you could “I shouldn’t have trusted him” you preface, “I knew from day one he was as old, if not older than my father, but I was a kid” you pause and hold your arms closer to yourself “He loved me, or so thats what he said. He would ask to see-“ your voice clogs in your throat and you sit up. Adrians eyes don’t move from you “He would ask to see explicit photos. He would blackmail me for more too” you look to Adrian who’s eyes fill with sympathy “Then one day I went to his place because I was convinced he loved me” you choke on a sob that you didn’t notice forming. Adrian comforts you by holding you to his chest.

“You don’t have to continue” he consoles, you shake your head

“I went there multiple times” you tell him between sobs “He-“ you go to continue, but you stop yourself. You can’t continue in fear of the flashbacks and nightmares remembering things you buried deep within yourself.

At some point Adrian brings you to his lap and you spend an indeterminate amount of time crying into his chest while Adrian cradles you and offers as much consoling as he possibly can. His heart reaches out to you considering his own trauma. He doesn’t think anything of it in the moment, consoling you and making sure you’re okay.

Eventually your sobs subside, Adrian thanks you for telling him, you shake your head “Thank you for listening Adrian, you’re the first person I’ve spoken to about it” you tell him “I only got away from that because we moved across the country for my fathers work,” you pause “You’re the first to know” you tell him, Adrian nods and wonders how long you had kept such a thing to yourself. He feels privileged to be trusted enough with such information, yet upset that you’ve never trusted enough to tell someone about it.

You feel as though a weight has been hauled off your chest finally getting something so gross off your chest. Especially after gripping onto the memory for so long. Adrian tells you a small handful of times that what happened was not your fault.

For the first time in your life, you believe that sentiment


	13. You’re safe and you’re warm and now you know pretty much everything about me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another filler like chapter :|
> 
> hopefully a longer chapter coming next!

Your brain recalls thinking about Adrian seeing you figuratively naked. Trauma out in the air. Sure theres some more, but you’ve spilled the big one. And that terrifies you. You wonder if from now Adrian will ever stop looking at you with sympathy. Sure he doesn’t seem like the person to do that to you, but the thought is already floating about in your brain.   
Eventually you completely gain your composure and Adrian offers to take you to the kitchen for some food. He jokes and says that he could try sneaking you some sweet pastries without Sypha noticing. You smile lightly at the joke and take him up on the offer. As you walk to the kitchen you hold onto Adrians hand as if you’re keeping your only lifeline close by. You know that if Trevor and Sypha, which they most likely are, in the kitchen they’ll read horrifically wrong into the situation. But you don’t care. Needing the feeling of someone warm close is the only thing you care about right now.

True to your thought you see Sypha grin at the fact you and Adrian are holding hands before reading the mood that the two of you are putting off. Adrian takes you to your seat and you sit down, you’re reluctant to let him go but the promises of something sweet fuels you to let go.

“Everything okay?” Sypha asks the both of you, you nod your head words escaping you. Sypha who looks less then content with your nod and probably more worried if anything drops the question quickly. She knows she’s not in a position to pry.

Adrian places a sweet pastry in front of you which you graciously accept, he then sits beside you. You thank him for the pastry after he sits so its unclear what you’re really thanking him for. He responds with a no problem regardless. You start planning your day, while its great and all to mope in your feelings all day you know its probably better to not be with those thoughts all day.

“What’s your plan for the day?” you ask Adrian, he smiles to you.

“Trevor mentioned about sorting out the armoury so I offered to give a hand” he tells you, you nod “You can come with us if you’d like” he tells you predicting your next question

“While Alucard was with you Trevor and I decided to write up an itinerary, if you’d like to help me with that” Sypha offers. You nod, avoiding physical labour will always be great.

After you freshen yourself up with the help of Sypha who is nothing but a not so silent tether keeping you grounded. Without a single air of judgement she helps you with your damp clothes and into a comfortable dress that she picked out for you. After helping you change the two of you walk to the armoury where Trevor and Adrian are already piling up and polishing bloodied weapons. From behind you Sypha pulls out two small notepads to which she tells you

“We’ll both count and we’ll compare numbers later” you agree and get working. You can’t help but make all your observations a little snarky ‘47 bloodied shortswords’ ‘34 chest plates that i’m pretty sure a vampire died in because there is soot all over them’. They make you chuckle so why wont you do it?

You conclude that taking inventory with the inclusion of snarky descriptions make the process a little more enjoyable and why the hell have you never done it like this before? 

You barely have time to think about what happened this morning which is a great way to get your mind off everything and distract yourself. And before you know it you’ve all gone through the entirety of the armoury and Trevors stomach interrupts the silent accomplishment you all share. The three of you laugh a little at the man in question who only remarks with a ‘well I’m hungry’. As you all exit the windowless armoury you notice that its much later then you expected it to be. The clock in the main hall reads 5pm.

Adrian seems to notice this too, but far to exhausted from the sorting to cook anything the four of you agree on a large open sandwich dinner. It takes no time to prepare salad and lay out the table for easy pickings. There’s a bowl of bread rolls enough for two each and three different cold meats from roast dinners that you’ve had in the last two weeks. Putting together sandwiches is chaotic but its lighthearted and thats just the atmosphere you need right about now. You feel a little bad for dictating that the room be in a way that distracts your brain, but the people around you are happy so really you don’t feel too horrific about it.

After dinner the four of you find yourselves in the lounge. Over the fortnight that Trevor and Sypha have been here you’ve all been more then happy to sit in front of a warm fire and play card games. Occasionally you’ll introduce a new game that you remember playing while getting drunks with friends. You’ll all spend hours playing games before calling it a night.

Much like tonight. Though the thing that differs is that Adrian walks you to your room to make sure that you’re all right. He makes you promise to call his name, even quietly, if you need him. He’ll hear you and be with you as fast as he can traverse from his room to yours. You feel yourself swoon at his consoling words and you promise without much thought. You’ll remember it even if you don’t need him tonight or the next. And even though you don’t speak it aloud he knows that you’ll remember.

Once he’s content that you’ll remember to call him he bids himself goodnight with a forehead kiss. 

Truth be told you didn’t need him that night but you take a little longer to fall asleep, not out of fear of the dreams, but more because you want to remember and internalise his words.

Your dreams that night seemed to have been protected by a silent soldier. You know Adrians words stick close to you and protect you through the night. Your brain is put into submission that it’ll have to deal with Adrian if it decides to act up through the night.

You could swear during the night that you notice someone come into your room, pull up a chair beside you and hold your hand. But that could be your overactive imagination talking. Besides, your fight or flight doesnt kick in so you cant be in danger.

Also whoever you imagined come into your room cant have happened because you wake up with a cold hand and the chair is put back into its rightful spot. So you chalk it down as imagining things.

You awake easily and contently in the morning. You feel well rested as of not a single nightmare reared its head. Which is completely correct. When you walk into the kitchen you notice Adrian, Sypha and Trevor all eating lunch. “What time is it?” you ask

“Just after noon” Adrian replies “I thought it’d be best for you to get as much sleep as possible so I left you” he tells you

“You’re just scared of getting kicked” you half jest sitting down and helping yourself to a readymade sandwich. Maybe they guessed that you’d be down for lunch. That or Adrian could hear you waking up. Either is possible.

“Oh by the way, I’ve decided that tomorrow we’ll open gifts, its a day after the solstice today, so I thought why not tomorrow?” she asks looking around the table. Sypha has subtly let on through the weeks that she made sure that everyone got gifts for everyone for a cute present exchange after the solstice. She doesn’t know what you’ve made for each person, unless Trevor told her about what you’re giving Adrian, but she’s content in just knowing you definitely have something.

After Syphas announcement the day trails by nicely. You hide yourself away in a different lounge to normal to create some more art, at some point Adrian joins you to read a book, the two of you bask in eachothers presence for a number of hours before you go off and make dinner. 

Aye, thats right, you and Sypha decided last night that you both wanted to make food considering that Adrian seems to constantly cook for the four of you. Adrian says how he enjoys cooking, but won’t complain about having a night off for once.

Food is nice and company is nicer. You all go to the lounge much like the night before but tonight you all decide to share your favourite memories from the past year. You contemplate what your favourite memory is, before getting here your year wasn’t filled with many wins...

You hear Sypha call your name mid contemplation “What’s your favourite memory of this year?” she asks

“That first magic lesson” you answer while looking at Adrian who nods in remembrance. You go onto explain the memory to the other two about how it felt to awaken the magic inside you, and how happy you were. Adrian inputs a thing or two but you’re the one telling the memory. Sypha smiles at your memory, its so happy and pure. She thinks to herself. Adrians next and you wonder what he’ll say.

Adrian starts to recount when he first gave you the sketchbook that you’ve so much used. He explains the way that you looked so happy and you complimented his own crafting of the sketchbook from the bottom of your heart. The way Adrian speaks about you makes your heart skip a beat. You wonder if this is how he sees you daily.

The rest of the evening passes like a whirlwind Adrians descriptions of you swirl about in your head almost like they are the soul thing keeping your ego together. Adrian escorts you to your bedroom again and reminds you of the promise he made you last night then leaves for his own room.

You fall asleep easily, Adrians words still swirling in your brain.


	14. Look, just because I painted you doesn’t mean I like you like that it just means I think you’re really pretty to draw and has nothing to do with the fact I’m infatuated with you

You wake up a little earlier then normal this morning and get dressed for your day. You cant deny the bubble of excitement that you feel rising in your chest. Today’s the day you give Adrian this painting you feel like you spent forever on. You take a peek at it and smile at the oil painting. You’re sure that it looks good purely because of the fact that you were blessed with beginners luck when using the paints. You run a finger over the painting feeling the textures of the canvas. You’re so glad that you’re so proud of it. Sometimes you’ll create a piece that you’ll immediately despise and never let the light of day see. You bring yourself out your thoughts, recover the painting and walk to the kitchen. You plan to make Adrian some sweet pasties to give as the gift after dinner and then when you’re both alone you give Adrian his main present. You really want to see his reaction by yourself, which is selfish really but you shrug it off. You unconsciously plan to make everyone a simple breakfast of eggs and bacon, if you feel adventurous you’ll bring out some bread to make them sarnie style.

Unsurprisingly you’re the only one awake in the kitchen so you go ahead and get started on the pastries. You hum along to your non existent music, you miss the feeling of sitting down and listening to your dumb nineteen hour playlist. It doesn’t take long for the pastries to get ready, you hide them in the pantry behind jars of pickled foods. The next thing you start to prepare is breakfast. About halfway through making breakfast you see Adrian enter the kitchen with a tired good morning to which you happily return. Adrian stands beside you and watches you cook the food. He takes an inhale of the food and makes a hum of approval and sits down to the kitchen table. You don’t ask for help because you’re perfectly content humming your silly little tune and making food.

As you dish up the food Trevor walks in and greets you, he tells the room Sypha won’t be long and that she’s creating some devious plan to take over the world or something. After the announcement Trevor helps you with the plates and you all start eating. Sypha joins halfway through the meal, but scarfs down her food so she catches up with everyone.

“We exchanging gifts after dinner?” you ask Sypha, she nods in confirmation. All you’ve got to do is find a way to spend your day.

The day goes past nicely and without much event. Trevor spends his day in the hold and you’re pretty sure Sypha joins him at some point. You think to their relationship, the two are cute and have a good dynamic. They were bought together by the biggest of chances by the sounds of things and they just work. Trevor balances out Syphas adventurous nature and Sypha brings out said nature from Trevor. They’re a great balance for eachother, they’re cute.  
Your mind wonders to you and Adrian, the both of you met because of the weirdest of circumstances and the two of you bounce off of eachother and you find emotional support with eachother. You smile at the thought of being in a relationship with Adrian. Your brain bombards you with excuses of why you’d never be able to get with him. It’s not like you don’t agree with the thoughts but it’d be nice to daydream about giving Adrian kisses without the reality part of your telling you no.

“What are you smiling about?” Adrian asks having just entering the room. Well nice you’ve been caught fantasising about the same man who’s just entered the room. Your face flushes a dark shade of red in the embarrassment of being caught in such thought

“I-“ you go to excuse yourself but you wave your hands in the air brushing the question away, Adrian laughs at you before sitting beside you

“That important?” he asks and you nod wordlessly and nudge him playfully, Adrian smiles at you with amusement. 

“What brings you here?” you ask looking up to the blond he smiles and nudges you again

“Thought I’d pop by to say hello” he answers. Liar. His brain tells him. He came down here to see his dumb boy crush. He tells himself, he scowls at his brain. You look up to him warmly and he can’t help but smile back. You feel so warm and like home to him. He hasn’t felt such comfort since his Mother’s unfortunate demise. You feel like a different kind of safe to him compared to his parents. He likes it, he feels as though if he were to let you go the warmth you bring him would leave him forever. He recognises how possessive the thought sounds, maybe he needs to find a way to let go of that possessiveness. Adrian wonders if the thoughts come from his past encounters. Especially considering everything that happened with Taka and Sumi. He wonders if the things he felt for them feel empty now, especially in contrast to the warmth he feels for you. He wonders if you with him when those two were around he’d foresee how things would turn out. There he goes. Adrian can’t help but blame himself for the things that happened over two months ago. 

He wonders if he’ll ever be able to build the confidence to tell you everything that happened. If he’ll be able to actually unlock the doors to the halls surrounding his room. He doesn’t keep them locked for a lack of distrust for you, but he’s scared of anything entering an area where he can be the most vulnerable. His minds falls to the times he’s fallen asleep with you and thinks about how comfortable he felt sleeping near you. His mind wonders to what it would feel like to sleep in the same bed as you, how safe he’d feel. He thinks of that day you told him about everything, how you leaned into his touch when he sat to make sure you had a good sleep. You looked so content, Adrian wonders if he’d ever see your content sleeping face again.

You can’t help but notice Adrian fall into deep thought, you smile at him and return to the book before you. Your mind reaches out to Adrian wondering what he’s thinking about. The hours slip by with no conversation between the two of you, you keep note how deep in thought he is and you are careful to not disrupt him. The not disrupting Adrian thing is working great, so great you’ve managed to slide in a nap. Adrian notices the change in your beating pattern and notices you asleep on his shoulder.

Another hour passes and you’re woken up Sypha who tells the two of you that foods ready. The three of you walk to the kitchen where Trevor has laid up the table all fancy for this secret roast dinner Trevor and Sypha cooked. You’re most surprised by the fact that Trevor was the one who initiated the idea and started cooking and cooked most of the roast dinner. Trevor mentions how he would help cook roast dinners when he lived with his parents. In that memory the table unanimously decides to let Trevor cut the meat, he thanks you all and neatly cuts the meat.

It tastes delicious. It’s lamb on the table and Trevor has found the most perfect way to cook it. You send a large helping of compliments to the chef. The said chef thanks you all flustered, you smile at the man.

After cleaning after dinner you all split and grab your presents from the various areas you’ve all stashed them. You’re first back to the table because of how close by you placed your presents and eventually everyone filters back in with jovial looks on their faces. You smile at them feeling happy and content. This is the most sober you’ve been at this time of the year and somehow you don’t feel the pang of jealousy at knowing how fucked the people you know in the 21st century would be right now.

Sypha, being the organiser starts handing out gifts. You open yours, its a new set of graphite pencils. You thank her and give her a hug. The pencils you have before these have been on their way out in the past three weeks, you’re thankful for them. The next is Trevor he slides over the present, you open it and are greeted with a container for your tobacco, its handmade you notice. And its a much better substitute to the old golden leaf pack you’ve been using. You thank the man and give him a big hug. 

Next its your turn, you slide the presents about. Trevor is the first to open his. He stares in awe at the sketch of him you did, he thanks you. Sypha tears up a little upon seeing her sketch and holds you in a tight hug a second longer then you would have liked. But you don’t really mind. Adrian opens his tin to be greeted by pastries and a small note giving him directions to meet you once the others have gone to bed. Adrian thanks you with a smile. 

Finally, it’s Adrians turn. He passes out the presents and you open yours. It’s a brand new handmade sketchbook, not too dissimilar to the one you already own. You grin at it and look through the pages. You notice a small note to meet Adrian at the same place as your note says after the other two are in bed. You chuckle a little at how both your minds thought the same thing. You give Adrian a hug and thank him.

The gifts are decidedly left on the table as Sypha drags the rest of you outside where theres a fire pit. She instructs everyone to sit and you all spend the night playing card games and staring at the stars when they decide to peak out from behind the clouds. The atmosphere is comfortable and happy.

Trevor and Sypha go to bed an hour or so after midnight. And you and Adrian both silently agree to meet in the lounge, your dedicated meeting point, after collecting whatever it is that you need.

When you get to the lounge you notice that Adrian is already there. He looks down to the canvas in your arms and you walk up to him. You feel nervous for some reason. You place the canvas onto the couch and gesture for him to look under the blanket. Slowly he lifts the blanket and inspects the canvas, his demeanour softens and your nerves leave. He looks to you with a grin.

“This is amazing” he tells you a finger lightly tracing over your signature at the bottom on the portrait. You blush at the flattery of your work. 

“Keep hold of it, it’ll be worth millions in a few years” you tell him holding back happy tears. You’re so glad he likes the painting, you wanted to convey everything beautiful about the man, even to the personality hidden behind his eyes and his mouth. Adrian nods 

“It’s already worth that much to me” he compliments. You grin at him happiness leaking from your tear ducts. Adrian pulls you into a hug and thanks you. After a few moments you break the hug and Adrian produces a small box “For you” he tells you. You pull the ribbon holding the box together and you’re greeted with a beautiful moonstone necklace. Adrian half hopes you understand the intention of the moonstone and half hopes you don’t. You know the meaning of the stone, it’s for things like love and attraction especially in the witchcraft world. You look to Adrian with wide eyes, who only offers a quiet “Here” as he takes the necklace out the box and fastens it around your neck. You watch the concentration on Adrians face and a few moments tick by before you tackle the man into a hug.

“Thank you” you thank “for this, for the sketchbook, for everything” you thank him another two times not breaking the hug. If you can freeze a moment and solidify this feeling forever you would. You’re purely happy and blessed. Eventually you let go and you both decide to call it a night. Adrian walks you to your room and just as you close the door.

“One more thing” he says like he built up the confidence for whatever he’s about to ask. You open the door and after a moment of silence like Adrian is trying to talk himself out of whatever he’s about to do he places a finger on your chin and. He gives you a short sweet kiss. Before bidding you goodnight.

Your heart is hammering against its fleshy cage and your brain can only repeat the fact he kissed you over and over again until you get into bed feeling a little light headed from the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m far too exited for the fact these guys finally kissed :D


	15. If I plan the new years celebration do we get to hang out and be cute together?

The next week after the gift sharing day and the,, well the kiss. Over the week neither you nor Adrian has mentioned the kiss you shared, its a little disheartening. But, it conforms the fact he might like you? Sure you’ve made out with guys then never heard from them again but Adrian wouldn’t play that kind of game. Especially considering how he has to live in the same castle as you.

Well unless he plans to kick you out when Trevor and Sypha leave.

Pushing aside the memory you not how much more time you’ve spent with Sypha over the last week honing you ice type skills and even teaching you the theory behind magic like that. When you’re not training with Sypha you’re training with Trevor. The man insisted that he wouldn’t feel safe leaving the castle without teaching you some proper combat. You tried to assure him that Adrian offered but he relents. Saying about how defenceless you looked when he met you and if the two weren’t friends of Adrian you could be dead, or worse. The combat training isn’t anything much, there’s a little swordplay here and there but most of it is how to take down large guys, like Trevor, using nothing but your body weight and the occasional magic trick.

Through the week you’ve been far too exhausted after dinner so you’ve called early nights most nights. Usually thats the time you spend with Adrian and you exchange stories about your day. But it feels like you’re avoiding subconsciously so. And you want to talk to him about what happened but you’ve never got the energy to do anything more than have a relaxing bath and go to sleep. Although you are grateful that the two are teaching you so much through the short week you miss your time with Adrian. Maybe you can get him alone for New Year’s eve. Sypha has mentioned that she and Trevor want to spend the evening together alone to celebrate the new years so you don’t see why you cant corner Adrian and observe the new year. 

Maybe scare him with a kiss from you. You think with a chuckle. 

Even if the two of you don’t talk about what happened that night being in Adrians presence is good enough for you. Unanswered questions can be answered at a later date if the mood isn’t right. You don’t want to ruin a good mood with such an adolescent question like ‘So what did our kiss mean?’. You don’t want to force Adrian into confessing anything, you want it to come naturally to him. Knowing from experience things can go bad if you ask for a confession before someone’s truly ready. Even if their actions tell you otherwise. You can’t deny the fact that it’s painful to have to put off any connection for any longer then you want to but Adrians presumed train of thought matters just as much as your own thoughts because it’s more then one persons emotions in the fray.

You get out of the bath you’re in while you were thinking and quietly get changed. You were so exhausted last night that you skipped the bath and getting out of your sweaty clothes before falling asleep face first into the pillow. You really needed to freshen up so morning bath it is.

You check yourself in the mirror before leaving the bathroom. As you approach the kitchen for some food you hear Sypha speaking “promise they’re not ignoring you, they’ve just been exhausted from training”, you hear Adrian go to answer as you enter the kitchen. 

“Morning!” you greet in a good mood, the three at the table look to you and greet you in succession. You pull out some oats for a simple porridge for yourself. The conversation at the table hasn’t resumed and you’ve noticed it. You wonder if what Sypha was saying was about you, you shrug to yourself. You know you purposely haven’t avoided anyone so you don’t feel guilty. You sit to the table with a smile and conversation starts up again. You pipe into the conversation occasionally enjoying the company of the room. 

Your plan for the day is to create a lil dinner picnic and pick out a nice location to be to observe the new year. Both Sypha and Trevor know of your little plan to get Adrian out to see the new year. You expect it to be a little anticlimactic compared to the firework extravaganza that you’re so accustomed to. But its more about the company than the overall expected experience. The three others at the table all filter out of the kitchen leaving you to scheme for you and finish your oats.

The hours of the day slip by, everyone comes in for a light lunch and leave you alone in the kitchen after a half hour. You’ve spent the day creating a little buffet type picnic to enjoy. The next task is to hide the made picnic and look for somewhere to sit outside. You spend the next hour looking for somewhere outside to sit before eventually finding a balcony off a large spare room to sit. 

Before you know it you’re back in the kitchen and you all sit and share another light meal as Sypha and Trevor have a plan to eat something later. The two leave leaving you and Adrian together. You spark up a conversation with Adrian about his day and you manage to subtly slide in how you want to spend the new year with him. Adrian lights up a little and asks what type of plan you have. You tap your nose with a wink. You ask what time Adrian want to meet up and he says in an hour or so because he wants to freshen up. You agree, wanting to change into something a little warmer and out of the dress you’ve worn all day. 

The both of you leave the kitchen and you find something warm to wear and you collect the picnic basket, as it nears the hour mark you see Adrian and you both walk to the balcony you found earlier. You pass Adrian a blanket to sit on and you both sit. 

“The village is more visible than I thought it would be” you remark seeing the distinct glow of the village in the distance, Adrian nods knowingly 

“They mentioned that they were going to come together and celebrate the new year” Adrian tells you, you nod

“I hope they have a good night” you add with a smile to the village. To the side of your vision you notice Adrian taking a peek into the picnic basket. You turn your attention to him “I made a ton of little snacks” you tell him as he pulls out a bite sized sausage roll 

“So thats why Trevor and Sypha kept me busy and away from the kitchen” he says, you nod with a smile

“They’ve been in on my plan” you chuckle “Surprisingly Trevor bought up the idea” you tell Adrian, who nods “So I’ve been brainstorming all week” you smile as the blond eats the roll taking in your words.

The hours fly by and you’re both jovially enjoying each others presence. An empty bottle of wine and two half filled wine glasses in hand later you notice the clock you’ve set up

“Oh we’ve got 5 minutes till next year!” you announce pointing at the clock, Adrian looks over the clock, he is a little shocked by how much time has passed.

The next five minutes passes by slower than the hours you’ve been sat here for. Your conversation is light as you wait for the minutes to count down.

“Any confessions for the last two minutes of this year?” Adrian asks. Your brain moves a mile a second the idea of a confession bubbling to the top of your mind

“I think that getting dropped here was the best thing to happen to me” you finally confess, Adrian smiles as you raise your glass “You, Adrian?” you ask

“I’m glad that I’m not here in this castle alone anymore” he confesses a soft expression on his face. You clink your glasses together and take a sip. You bring your glasses down and notice another ten or so seconds left of the year. Your brain quickly weighs up a million thoughts. 

And without much thought you grab Adrian by his shirt and pull him forwards for a kiss.

Because of the quick movement your teeth knock together a little but you both melt into said kiss a little. It’s nothing like the one your shared not a week before. Maybe the wine you had gave you the confidence to give a deeper kiss. You feel Adrian cradle the back of your neck as he swoons into the kiss. 

You feel your heart beat a little faster at his movement as the two of you continue kissing. Adrian pulls back and you open your eyes at the loss of contact and see Adrians eyes above your own. He smiles.

“That’s a way to start the year” he says, you hum in agreement and close the gap between your lips again.

You can feel the inexperience on his lips against your own, but you don’t mind leading him through the process of probably the best make out session you’ve had in such a long time.

You feel Adrian pull you onto his lap and you snake your hands into his hair like he did yours not to long ago.

You don’t care about the thoughts telling you this is a bad idea. You don’t care about the thoughts telling you how awkward this could make everything. You just care about kissing the man before you.

Far too soon for you the both of you pull apart, only panting breaths and a trail of saliva between the two of you reminding you of what just happened.

“I could do that forever” you tell the blond as you cup Adrians cheek, he smiles up to you. You feel Adrians hand on your waist, you hadn’t really noticed it but how else would he have-

Your face suddenly flushes red your ears heating up just as much as your face as the realisation of what just happened befalls you. Adrian chuckles at you and places a hand, colder than your face, onto your cheek. 

“Cute” he says under his breath. You barely hear him but you smile at him and bring your foreheads together. Your arms snake around Adrians shoulders bringing him into a tighter hug. Adrians arms follow suit and pull you closer by the waist.

You could sit here like this forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I hope your holidays have been great!
> 
> This little break between the last chapter and this one has been great. The winter solstice and christmas have been fun and I’ve been able to brainstorm a few new ideas for how I want this to go.
> 
> Anyway new chapters will be incoming!! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! <3


	16. Please just kiss me I don’t want to think about anything rational right about now

You sit on Adrians lap for what feels like forever your foreheads touching and the occasional shared smooch. Not many words are shared during this time. You’re just basking in each other’s presence. You could stay here forever but alas your time is cut short.

“It’s getting late” Adrian remarks you nod “I think its about time for bed” you move off of Adrian and stretch. You stand up and notice Adrian stand up to, you both tidy away the picnic basket. You let rip a yawn and Adrian chuckles at you.

“Guess I’m more tired than I thought I was” you comment with a small laugh. You both drop off the picnic basket and Adrian walks you to your room. “You know the bed gets cold when its just me” you speak up before saying goodbye. Adrian smiles at you in amusement.

“Does it now?” he asks with an air of amusement. Adrian ponders your not so subtle proposal for a moment “But, we’ll save that for another night” he tells you, you nod with a smile. Your proposal was a shot in the dark anyway so you don’t feel too bad that he said no.

“Well then goodnight” you say happily, Adrian smiles at you again and bids you goodnight too. You flop into bed your head feeling light and the overwhelming feeling of content washing over you. You fall into a deep sleep with no dreams.

Over breakfast the next morning Sypha and Trevor announce that they’ll be leaving again within the week. You and Adrian don’t speak about what happened last night, but you both have a knowing glimmer in your eyes whenever you both make eye contact. Since you said you’d help Sypha look for her things across the castle you tell her what happened last night. Her eyes light up with a ‘I knew it’ as you tell her

“But it can still go either way, we haven’t really spoken about anything” you tell her as you shrug “I don’t really mind things going unsaid for a little bit though, I haven’t felt like a lovestruck schoolgirl in forever” you add, Sypha nods in half understanding.

“You’ll have to speak about it at some point” she tells you, you nod in agreement 

“I know he’s got to like me a little bit to, you know, kiss me but theres a nagging feeling that he doesn’t like me like that.” you tell Sypha, she laughs a little at you

“You’re oblivious” she comments before walking out of the room thus ending the conversation. You follow after the woman into the stables where her and Trevors wagon is situated. You both place the items into the wagon.

“It’s gonna be weird not having you two here after so long” you comment watching Sypha organise the things. She nods with a smile 

“It’s weird to be settled for so long, its been nice” she reminisces “but I can’t wait to get back onto the road, Trevor secretly likes being on the road too” she adds with a smile. You can tell she loves the adventure, and you’d be stupid to think that Trevor doesn’t enjoy it as much as the ginger.

The next three days are repetitive for the most part. Trevor and Sypha search for their things while you and Adrian help them. And before you all know it their wagon is filled and ready to go. Over dinner one the third night the two announce that they’ll be leaving the next morning. Evening activities are much like normal, but theres a solemn air lingering about the room. It’s hard not to feel a little sad with the departure of people who have shared the same experiences as you for the past month. Which is exactly half your time here. You blink twice at the thought of only knowing Adrian for just over two months. So much has happened.

You and Adrian stand beside each other as the other two settle into their wagon. You walk up to the two and place a hand on Syphas thigh

“Safe travels friends” you tell them with a smile, Sypha leans down and gives you a hug “Come back at some point ey” you add, Trevor leans forwards

“No promises” he jests, you smile at him fondly

“I’m going to miss you both” you tell them, teary eyes. You step back and Adrian steps forwards and says goodbye to his friends. And before long its just you and Adrian alone in the massive castle again. Without a word you hold Adrians hand and you both walk back to the castle. Adrian excuses himself after you enter the castle and leaves you alone.

You’re happy that Trevor and Sypha have gone adventuring, for its so engraved into their nature. But, you suddenly miss the company. You stand for a little too long in the entrance hall. You feel lonely. You know Adrian is here somewhere too, but you’ve always had someone close by to bother. You’re not sure where Adrian has gone off to, and it’s probably for the best that he’s alone because he wants to be. But, the tug of sudden loneliness at your heart is hard to ignore. You try to distract yourself and the feeling as much as you can. And you’re only occupied for at most an hour and half, but that’s mostly from all the walking across the castle to look for something to entertain you. 

At some point you find yourself in a part of the castle you haven’t explored before now. You take it upon yourself to look through these halls. You wonder how Dracula used all of these rooms, especially considering how Adrian described his father before having him. You wonder if any large scale parties were thrown, you wonder what a vampire ball would be like. Would everyone turn up in shades of black, red and purple? You chuckle to yourself about the observation taken directly from movies. Your lucky lack of experience with vampires could be completely wrong. Although, it does feel absurd to imagine vampires in the brightest pinks, yellows and even greens. 

Adrian hasn’t spoken much about vampire politics, it makes sense considering how detached he is from it, but you cant help but wonder what goes on in the vampire aristocratic brain. That’s working on the presumption that vampires hold positions of power. You consider briefly the nature of the vampires you’ve read about, and the nature of what Dracula was like when commanding his army’s. The likelihood of a vampire monarchy is completely possible, if not a 100% likely.

Your next thought drags onto Adrian, of Dracula blood. Working on the presumption that Dracula was the best of the best, the king of vampires so to say. Would that make Adrian be a royal amongst vampires? Or considering his half human lineage would he be seen like how human royals see bastard children. Although your mind is cast to such bastard sons like William 1st of England who managed to climb to such a rank from the rank of Duke or Normandy. You wonder for Adrian to gather such a crown, a notoriety like Dracula he would have to overthrow and cull anyone who dares cross him.

You laugh a little at the absurdity of the thought. Adrian in most aspects is nothing like his father. Maybe it was an unconscious decision or a conscious decision of his mother, who presumably didn’t want Adrian to be anything like his father. The killing machine part, not the lovable father part. Your mind is casted to Adrians name to the ‘humans’. Alucard, the direct opposite of Dracula. The opposition is not just in name. You wonder if you appeared in Draculas ballroom during his peak would he show you as much kindness as Adrian did. 

You remember Adrian telling you how his mother basically inserted himself into Draculas life. It can’t have always been candies and rainbows. The man was a killing machine, killing humans for the game. Much like how human royals engage in fox hunts and deer hunts.

You’re pulled out your thoughts as you approach a battle scarred area. You look to the ceiling and see a large hole and under it a pile of rubble that must have been hit with extreme force. From the tidbits of what Adrian has told you and the subtle hints that Trevor and Sypha have made over the month, the three of them fought Dracula in his own home. You notice a patch of dried blood along with a few cracks from the point of origin on the floor. It’s half obvious to you that someone’s head was smashed repeatedly into the concrete tile. Considering the fact Trevor and Sypha are very much alive your immediate thought is that it had to have been Adrians head. 

Trevor mentioned at one point that Dracula had the upper hand for most of the battle, presumable because of his vampire strength. So you’re quick to conclude it was the sons smashed on the tile in comparison to the sons.

You find a set of stairs leading up towards the rest of the fight. Once up on the next floor you see the hole leading to the sudden drop to the floor below. You walk around it careful to not disrupt any of the rubble and plummet to your not so cool demise. You notice the debris goes up another floor so you look for another set of stairs to walk up. You continue to follow the debris till you find it leading to a closed door. You put your hand on it an open the door to see the devastation of the room.

The first thing you note is the fact that this is a child’s bedroom. Your breath catches at the thought of this most likely being Adrians bedroom. The second thing you notice is a carpet which is mostly burned and charred. The thought of this being where Dracula died bubbles to the surface. You wonder how hard it must have been to deliver any kind of final blow in a childhood bedroom. The third think you notice is Adrian in the far corner of the room by a small bed.

His expression scares you a little, you can feel his sadness leaking off of him. But he’s not crying, he’s looking blankly as if thousands of thoughts are bombarding him. You lower yourself about a foot away form Adrian to give him some space if he jumps. You call his name a few times and eventually place your hand on his knee. He doesn’t jump much, but he looks up to you and tackles you into a hug. Your back hits the hardwood floor which is much less then comfortable. Adrian has buried himself in your chest and you can feel the slight sensation of a growing wet patch on your chest and the shaking of Adrians body. He’s crying. You manage to sit up and hold Adrian close as he cries. You stroke his hair and whisper sweet nothings into his hair and plant the occasional kiss on his hair.

Eventually Adrian gathers himself. You don’t mind sitting with him forever until he’s calm again. He looks up to you with big golden eyes

“Please don’t betray me” he stutters. Your heart sinks as you pull him into a hug

“I promise I will never do anything to betray you or your trust” you reassure him. You feel Adrian smile a little and squeeze your side. You loosen the hug and Adrian looks at you. He cups your cheek. He speaks your name as your eyes greet his.

“Thank you” he says your name again. You nod and give Adrians hand a small kiss. You both slowly stand up. You raise the idea of taking Adrian to have a nap or something, but he disagrees. You both end up downstairs in the kitchen with a cup of tea each.

Adrian tells you, almost, everything. He tells you what happened last time Sypha and Trevor left, he tells you about the two who came searching for knowledge, he tells you that they betrayed him in his most vulnerable moment. You can tell he wants to cry again but he wants to tell you as much as his brain will let him.

So here he is, metaphorically naked before you. You understand how he feels, finally building up the courage to talk. You pull your chair beside Adrian and put your hand on his and soothe him. He thanks you for your patience, you assure him that he never needs to thank you for being there for him.


	17. I’m not being stand offish I’m just really horny and can’t stop thinking about what your hands can do.

The days roll past, the first fortnight of January seems to last forever and a day. You and Adrian keep going your separate ways in the day to reconvene in the evening. Your mind is constantly swirling with thoughts about Adrian and the kisses you’ve shared. Your brain lingers on every shoulder bump and touch from Adrian. It’s driving you crazy and unimaginably horny. It’s almost painful. You know better then to indulge yourself at every touch Adrian has given to you. It’s even more tempting while you’re in the bath or settling into bed.

You feel helplessly indecent touching yourself over some extremely handsome man with super hearing. You don’t ever forget that fact, no matter the situation. You find yourself talking to yourself way less then you did back in the 21st century. You fear that Adrian might be listening to you constantly, despite the fact he’s assured you many times he only listens out for shouts and screams to make sure you don’t go about dying on him.

You’re flattered but this horny buildup really isn’t healthy. You can hear your way to open comfort friends telling you to go rub one out. You contemplate it for a little while wanting to find friction in anything. You manage not to. Your victorian ancestors would be proud of you. You laugh at the thought, dumb victorian ancestors wouldn’t be content with anything you’ve done in your life. You would spit on their graves but they all very much do not exist yet. That’s an odd thought.

Oh thank god your brain has moved on from Adrian. Well you thought too soon. You look down at your sketchbook in your hands. You’ve been too deep in thought to draw anything all day. Maybe if the thought of getting off is distracting you so much maybe you should- No. You gather your composure and try literally anything to distract your dumb homosapien brain.

“There you are” you hear Adrian say and sit beside you. “I was wondering where you scuttled of to” he adds nudging your shoulder. You smile at him hoping the conversation would distract your brain a little “You seem distracted” Adrian comments, you shake your head 

“Just this art block is kicking me in the ass” you tell him, quickly coming up with a non horny excuse for your distraction. Adrian smiles and chuckles a little.

“Well I came up here to speak with you” he tells you after a moment of silence, maybe because he’s trying to contemplate how to articulate his words. You curse at yourself. No good conversations come after a phrase like that. Stuff you in a package and send you away right now instead of facing whatever inevitable doom is to come. Adrian pauses for a painfully long time, delaying whatever inevitable he needs to tell you. “Why’d you kiss me?” he asks as if he changed what he was about to say at least thirty times. You open your mouth, then close it.

“Well...” you trail off wondering how to put words together and form a coherent sentence “I’m attracted to you” you tell him in a small voice, but you know he heard by what question follows

“In a friend way or in a... more romantic way?” he asks you. You threaten a laugh at the question

“I don’t passionately kiss my friends” you tell him with an air of amusement. Adrian nods and you both look at each other.

“So” Adrian starts, you nod in expectance on what he’s about to say “What if we try out a courtship?” he asks. This isn’t the kind of conversation you imagined having today. You have never seen Adrian look so nervously. If you aren’t so afraid of buckling to your dumb horny fantasy’s you’d kiss the man right about now. Not like you’d do anything without his explicit permission though.

“I was going to make about how old fashioned the word courtship is, then I remembered when I am” you tell him with a light chuckle “But, I’m up for it. Though I call it dating” you tell him with a smile. Adrian nods with a smile. You place your head on Adrians shoulder, he places a hand on your thigh. Your brain tries to come up with something to say and you just stomp it back down wanting to embrace the moment. 

As if all lack of confidence dissipated after you agreed Adrian gives you a kiss. You’re tempted to ask for more kisses from the man, but you don’t want to push your luck and let this dumb horny feeling bubble up too far. “Should we go and make some dinner?” Adrian asks, you nod with a smile. You both walk to the kitchen and look for something to make.

As you both eat not much conversation befalls the table, Adrian mentions going into town sometime soon and mentions how you should come along with him. You happily agree. You both make plans to leave for town and then you’re both back in a comfortable silence. 

Your brain decides that its been enough time without any dirty thoughts so a fantasy scenario bubbles itself to the surface. You wonder what Adrians hands would feel like making friends with various parts of your body, what his lips would feel like anywhere that isn’t just his lips. You wonder if you’d feel the graze of his fangs on your body. You think of-

You’re interrupted out of your thoughts by a call of your name. Caught red handed ey? You flush and quickly apologise for being so deep in thought. Adrian doesn’t mind, but he brings your attention to a stack of pastries. You choose one and so does Adrian.

Not before long dinner has been packed and cleaned away and the both of you find yourself in the lounge. You don’t remember climbing onto Adrians lap but here you are firmly planted on his lap watching him read you his book. Everything seems to zoom by until you cup Adrians cheek his attention suddenly on you. You run a thumb over his lip, you can feel his breath catch in his throat as he moves slightly closer towards your face. You move forwards about an inch between your mouths. Adrians the one to close the gap.

The kiss is much unlike the one you shared on new year’s eve. There’s an absence of an empty bottle of wine so each movement is methodical on both your parts. You take to exploring each others mouths to an unspoken rhythm. After a few moments you move apart a little breathless, Adrian smiles at you and you smile back opting to kiss him all about his face. Adrian laughs a little before capturing your lips again.

Before long Adrians back to reading. Until you disrupt him again. The cycle continues until you’re both too tired and bid adieu. You fall asleep nicely and contently for the most part except the nagging horny feeling at the back of your head.


	18. Yes I finally caved to my impulses and I think that my boyfriend with super hearing might of heard so now I’m too embarrassed to look him in the eye. Yeah NSFW time what about it?

Your brain has a childish mind of its own this morning. You wake yourself up with your own hand pinching your hardened nipple. You take too long to notice the sleight moan at the back of your throat as you pinch your nipple again. You don’t mind this groggy session with yourself.

Imagining your own hand as Adrians colder one you imagine his hands roaming your torso his teeth thoroughly latched onto that sweet spot that not many men or women have reached before. Just the thought causes you a sigh a little louder then you should. 

Your hands eventually reach to your underwear and you slowly rub your clit through the thin fabric of your panties. A small breathy moan escapes your mouth, you catch yourself saying Adrians name as you rub yourself in rhythmic circles. 

You imagine Adrians mouth nipping playfully at your nipples and embracing one of them into his wet mouth. You cant help but wonder about Adrians evident experience, but you can see him taking control and praising you.

Despite not identifying as a female the thought of Adrian praising you by calling you a good girl almost makes you go feral. You imagine such praises leaving his mouth as well as whispers of your name. 

Your cheeks flush a little at the thought of Adrian saying your name in such a lewd tone. You barely notice yourself slip your hands into your panties finally giving up on the tease you were giving yourself. A small moan, which could be mistaken for another sigh, bobs at the back of your throat at this new contact with yourself.

Your hand works rhythmically at your clit spinning in circles around the bud and up and down over it. The action makes you wonder what Adrians tongue would feel like against your lewdest region of your body. Your other hand pinches your hardened nipple almost without you noticing. You half yelp at the surprise at your own actions.

You squeeze your eyes shut imagining seeing Adrian below you rhythmically eating you out and sliding an experimental finger into you. You arch your body back at the thought of Adrian doing such an act. You cant help but moan his name under your breath again.

You feel the sensation you’ve grown so accustomed to beginning in your chest, then your toes which quickly rises to where your fingers are making great work of your most sensitive spot. The blond vampires name graces your tongue once more. You feel the hot liquid leak onto your undies. You ride out the orgasm your fingers feeling more slick thanks to the addition of your cum.

As your fantasy comes to a close you suck the cum off your fingers tasting yourself, in theory it sounds a little gross but your brain brings up an image of Adrian making you lick his fingers clean. You hear imaginary Adrian give you another praise which sits in your chest.

A few moments pass of you gathering yourself after the orgasm. And you finally realise what you had done. Your hand hits your face and you groan. Your body still revealed to the room as proof of the act you just committed. 

It doesn’t take long for you to roll out of bed with the shame of the fantasy fresh on your brain. You quietly clean yourself up and get dressed for the day ahead of you. 

There’s no way you could look Adrian in the eyes after this. You contemplate for a moment, you wonder if he would know what kind of act you committed.

A knock on your door jumps you out your thoughts. You open the door to greet the knocker to see, unsurprisingly, Adrian. He greets you with a soft kiss. You wonder if he tastes your cum which settles on your tongue after sucking your fingers dry.

“I made us a nice breakfast before we start lessons” he tells you, you nod smiling with closed eyes to avoid eye contact without looking like a horrible person. Even with the maybe thought of Adrian not hearing you forgot to bring up the fact that the half vampire has super human hearing. Your face blushes a little wondering if Adrian heard your morning horniness. What if he smelt the heat in the air when you opened the door? Your brain whirls with the possibilities a mile a second.

So much so that you don’t remember making it to the kitchen and sitting down for the scrumptious looking breakfast. After expending your energy on the early morning rub the breakfast feels extra nutritious and energy giving.

‘They don’t know’ Adrian comments to himself internally as he watches you eat ‘They don’t know I heard’. Adrian had been going about his business, he actually finished making breakfast a lot earlier than when he god you. He almost raised a hand to knock on your door when he heard you moan his name. He was totally caught off guard at your loud breaths and small moans. Adrian in no way is a voyer of any kind, nor would he peak on you without permission. But he felt like knocking on you now would cause much more embarrassment so he decided not to. To be fair Adrian didn’t really complain at the fact that he could hear your lewd sounds. 

Adrian stops his train of thought and looks to his now finished plate. The thought flashes behind the vampires eyes of what would he could do to to make similar noises come from you. A small blush dusts Adrians cheeks as he buries the thoughts down to the bottom of his brain to think of later in a private space.

The two of you wash the dishes and you both make your way outside. The two of you decided a day or so ago to that it would be a good idea to star training outside with the snow so Adrian doesnt have to worry about flooding the castle, and the snow on the ground can act like extra ammunition for jovial activities.

Your brain thinks of that scene from the movie Elf where Buddy creates a pile of snowballs for an intense battle of snowball wars. You wonder if you could make a similar arsenal to the movie and surprise Adrian with a snowball to his chest. 

You train for about three hours before, after losing the fourth spar in a row you give up and bombard the blond with five snowballs. You catch him off guard, it takes him a second to process the act you just committed.

Once he realises he pelts a snowball at your and a intense snowball battle begins.

You definitely win, yup. 

“I won” you tell Adrian who chuckles at you and buts his shoulder against you

“I kicked your but” he half argues with a grin, you but shoulders with him again. You both lightheartedly joke about the snowball fight and settle down for a late lunch. It’s nothing extravagant just something light with bread and cold meats. But its nice and well earned after the training. You both go your separate ways to change out of both your sodden clothes. 

Once changed the two of you make your way into the Belmont hold for some... light... reading. As if light reading is entirely possible in this massive hold. 

You want to read up on more magic. You have recently wondered if anyone has had a similar problem with not being able to use more then one element. Maybe it has something to do with not having your arcanum completely opened.

It’s nothing you cant try and get your brain around.

Adrian wordlessly leads you to a section of the hold on the subject of magic. The two of you quietly look for a book giving you any kind of hint of how to learn more elements. You wonder if could set things on fire like the dumb arsonist like you’ve always wanted to be.


End file.
